


Lay Out The Odds

by fourfreedoms



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Underground Fighting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blowjobs, Face-Fucking, Facials, Family Dynamics, First Time, Homophobic Language, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Patrick Kane/OFCs - Freeform, Praise Kink, Public Sex, Sex Wagers, UST, revenge porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:11:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourfreedoms/pseuds/fourfreedoms
Summary: “What the fuck? Watch it,” he hisses, gloved hand going to protect his ribs, and looks up to find Jonny staring at him, eyebrow raised. As if Patrick was the one who crashed into him. 

  He’s not even sure why the guy is here. It sure as hell isn’t to train. He’s wearing a suit that makes him look like a Wall Street douche, which for all Patrick knows he is.
Patrick's a natural and Jonny's been training for as long as he's been breathing. They don't see eye to eye.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic in March of 2014. I used to refer to it as Secret Project on tumblr. I wasn't sure if I would ever post in this fandom again, but after rediscovering all my unfinished fic when I was going through some things for grad school, I felt I owed it to myself to start posting it, given how much blood, sweat, and tears I poured into it over the course of two years. 
> 
> A million years ago, this was initially inspired by a joking conversation between me and demotu about how Never Back Down could actually have been a good movie if they'd played their cards right. I decided to write my own. It's _not_ a Never Back Down AU, ultimately, but some elements are similar. 
> 
> You'll be able to tell how old this is based on the players I've used. So many of them are gone. When I put Versteeg in the fic, he wasn't even back yet. Now he's gone again!
> 
> I'll be posting a chapter a week until it's all up. This will eventually be quite explicit. I'll also add additional tag as new chapters get posted.
> 
> Lastly, many, many people audienced this fic over the years. Shoutout to anybody who let me whine at them about this. You know who you are, and thank you so much.

Patrick got into the University of Chicago because his SAT scores said he was a smart fucking kid, even though he was sitting on a solid C+ average before his senior year of high school. It wasn’t that he wised up because some jerkass role model stepped into his life and started taking an interest—this wasn’t some _Finding Forrester_ or _Goodwill Hunting_ circle-jerk bullshit. He was born in Buffalo as the Reagan ‘80s were coming to a close, more of an accident than a blessing to his parents. There wasn’t any money. The manufacturing jobs were gone, the steel mills were all closed, and a landslide of economic decline was only just beginning. In a city where one in three people were below the poverty line, his family was better off than most, but still solidly stuck in shit city, attending crappy schools, working backbreaking jobs for pennies, getting older and closer to dying. 

And one night, in the middle of summer, watching his best friend get carted off in the back of a squad car for throwing a half empty bottle of SoCo at a cop, knowing that he was going to skip right past the juvenile justice system and land his ass in jail, it hit him. They’d paid twenty dollars of good money to a methhead to buy them the cheapest bottle of whiskey he could find and then they’d stupidly, stupidly traded it back and forth, sitting on a public park bench with three older girls who had just graduated from the local high school and seemed like worldly sophisticates. Or at least, sophisticated enough to allow Patrick to feel a bit of tit without squealing about it. This was his life. Throwing bottles at the cops because none of this shit was fair, because they were too tired and too angry to be smart about it, and then not being able to run away from the consequences. 

He knew, in that moment, he had to get the fuck out. 

Patrick wasn’t the first in his family to go to college. Everybody always went on about his ‘fancy” Uncle Larry who went to University of Buffalo and then became a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker. His son, Joseph, went to Syracuse on a basketball scholarship. Patrick didn’t have any of those opportunities. He’d played hockey as a kid, but the costs ate up more money than his family had, especially after Jessica and Jackie arrived. He had an out-of-date SAT prep book from the first year they switched from 1600 to 2400 and he was a master bullshitter. Somehow the combination got him into college with a modest scholarship and a huge fucking Sallie Mae loan to pay the rest. 

The thing was—he’d worked so hard to _get_ here. He hadn’t thought to how he was going to manage to _stay_ here. 

*

Patrick’s lucky in that he makes friends easily enough. He’s easy-going, always down for a good time—he’s managing all right in his classes by putting in the bare minimum amount of work. He just never took into account how much he was going to hate it. Living in Broadview is okay. He’s got friends. His roommate’s pretty inoffensive. He stays out of Patrick’s way and Patrick stays out of his, and everybody gets along fine. It’s just...not like that with everybody. And he’s reminded over and over just how many things these other kids are taking for granted. 

The first Friday in October, he goes out with a senior who’s in his economic analysis class, also a Patrick, but he goes by Sharpy. They started talking during a discussion section and Patrick likes him. He’s on the Ultimate Frisbee team, has a stupid nickname, and keeps trying to recruit him. Sharpy brings his friend Burr, who’s on the team with him, and this kid, Andrew Shaw, who lives in Broadview with Patrick, and seems pretty cool, if somewhat of a yappy puppy. He’s in Palmer while Patrick is in Wick, so they’ve never met before. 

They end up at an Illinois Beta party because Burr likes a girl who said she’d be there. It’s shit, of course. Cases of watery Keystone and shitty jungle juice are the only thing on offer while the scratchy speakers play some lameass Top 40 crap. Patrick ducks into the kitchen, hoping to score some ice to make his drink a little more palatable and stumbles upon this chubby chick getting loudly mocked by a pledge or a brother—or whatever it is they call these frat bro assholes—for daring to come to his party with her friends or something. 

She’s cute enough, even if she looks about ready to cry. Back home most of the girls he knew would’ve flung her drink in the asshole’s face and started in on his dick size. It makes him uncomfortable, watching her there, frozen, just taking it. So Patrick tells him to lay the fuck off her and stop harshing the vibe. It’s not his fault the idiot gets the bright idea to fight him. Patrick doesn’t have a lot of height to him, but he grew up on the rough side of town, going to a priority public school in one of the worst districts in New York State. 

Patrick demolishes him. 

Sharpy and Andrew find him afterwards, sitting on a park bench, rinsing his split knuckles out with a bottle of water he stole from the house. 

“Did you just kick the shit out of Robbie Miller?” Sharpy asks, settling in beside him. 

Patrick shrugs. “I don’t think any kicking was involved.” 

“Jee-sus Christ, Patrick,” Sharpy says and shakes his head. “Jesus christ.” 

It’s not the last fight he gets in. 

*

By his second semester he’s got a bit of a reputation. It’s doing well for him, he thinks. Girls seem to like it. He’s scoring pretty regularly these days. People leave him the fuck alone. That or they come up to him, asking for good weed, like he’s a fucking dealer or has an in somewhere. It seemed like everybody back in Buffalo was strung out on Oxy and blow. Apparently he’s carried the stain of that with him. 

He’s good at using his fists and he likes it. Everybody always underestimates him, so it’s just that much better every time he wipes the floor with them. 

“You ever think there’s a better way to channel your aggression?” Andrew asks, sitting on Patrick’s bed, supposedly studying for a midterm, but looking up pictures of Kate Upton lookalikes getting boned on his phone, while Patrick does push-ups in the center of his floor. 

“What aggression?”

Andrew snorts and leans forward to show him a picture of the actual Kate Upton in some barely there scrap of bikini, breasts overflowing out the sides. She’s stacked and beautiful obviously, but her bored stoneface shuts Patrick off like a light. 

“Not my thing,” he breathes, doing one last one to round out his set. He likes them lean and willowy. He imprinted on this girl, Adrienne Wilsen, who was a freshman in high school when he was just entering middle school. Everybody who’s come after has always been measured against her standard. Granted, she got pregnant a year after getting her diploma, dropped out of community college and has been working at a post office ever since, on baby number three already. He very carefully remembers the way her legs looked in the short denim skirts she wore and the way she always smelled of vanilla, and pretends everything that came after never happened. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Andrew replies, rolling his eyes. “Like, I dunno, join a boxing gym or something. You could deck people without worrying about felony assault charges!” 

Patrick rolls to his feet and gives Andrew a look to show him exactly what he thinks of that idea. Like he has the cash to join some hack gym that’ll probably smell like ball sweat and be filled with puffy aspiring Dwayne Johnson lookalikes. 

*

Patrick likes to get off campus and go around the city. 

It’s not like there weren’t nice parts of Buffalo—well the nice parts of Buffalo were mostly outside of Buffalo. Lake Erie’s nothing to sneeze at and Niagara Falls was only twenty-five minutes away and they would drive across the border sometimes to Canada, since it was sitting right there and there was fuck else to do. But Chicago has got genuinely nice parts. He’s not about to go canonizing the projects or anything, but it’s nice to be in a place that doesn’t look post-apocalyptic in half the neighborhoods. He doesn’t mind being a tourist at Navy Pier or going up to the Skydeck or taking the guided tour of the Water Tower. He figures out that the Art Institute doesn’t charge admission on Thursday evenings, and both the Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Science and Industry have free days. 

He’s on one of these urban adventures when he spots a gym right off of the Red Line. It’s a little hole in the wall, but he can see the ring from the window, and he watches as this little guy completely takes this big dude apart in the span of a few short seconds. It’s some crazy UFC-worthy nonsense right there. 

His feet wander him inside before his head really knows what he’s doing. The place is pretty bare bones, but the equipment is all in good condition. The people working the bags and jumping rope all look legit. Although Patrick doesn’t actually know a lot about what this shit is supposed to be like. He learned to take his punches in back alleys and school parking lots, not training gyms. 

“Hey, kid, you lost?” this old guy says, sitting at a metal desk. He’s got grey hair and mustache worthy of a ‘70s porno, but his steel-eyed gaze says he could still show Patrick what for. 

“Nah, I was just curious.” He tilts his head at the little guy who’s toweling off at the corner of the ring. 

The old timer leans back in his chair, gaze inscrutable. “You looking to beat up on some guy bigger than you?” 

Patrick already does beat up on guys bigger than him. He lifts a shoulder. “Not really, man.” 

Something about the way he says it gives the guy pause, because he looks at Patrick, really looks at him, for the first time. “Why’d you walk through the door?” 

Patrick shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

*

The old timer’s name is Quenneville, but everybody calls him Q, and he takes Patrick on like a project. Before long, Patrick’s at the gym once a day, whenever his classes give him a spare moment. 

Q likes his reflexes, the surprising pop on his jab, and the firmness of his uppercut. What he does not like is Patrick’s flexibility or his technique. 

“Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy,” he says, after watching Patrick go against another guy, Kris Versteeg, who’s been coming to the gym for a few years. He’s solid and fast, and he puts Patrick through his paces, but Patrick beats him nearly as often as he loses. Q calls Patrick a natural, although he says it like it’s a lamentable condition, not a positive attribute.

Patrick scored a pretty solid hit to Versteeg’s ribs, so he turns to Q, pops out his mouthguard and spreads his hands. “Really?” 

Q shakes his head at him, like Patrick’s some meddlesome kid TP-ing his lawn. “You’ve got power, but no precision.” 

He starts throwing out all these styles—capoeira, Brazillian jiu jitsu, Muay Thai, Krav Maga and all their attributes and fine points. “You better start coming to some more classes,” he says with a sigh. 

Versteeg takes a long gulp of water from his squeeze bottle and just laughs at him. In the next round, he puts Patrick into an absolute pretzel of a submission that has him tapping out in seconds. He’s bad at submissions, putting people in them or getting out of them. When you’re fighting somebody who might switchblade you in the gut, it’s not like you’re going to do something stupid like go in body to body. Patrick concedes that yes, he’s definitely got some more shit to get together. 

*

“You’re getting really cut,” Sharpy says, one Saturday afternoon after Patrick finally agreed to come out to an Ultimate practice. He thinks it’s pretty dumb, but he can both catch and throw a frisbee, which is apparently a valuable combination around these parts. The weather’s just starting to get nice again, only a little chilly, Patrick brought a sweatshirt with him, but he’s discarded both it and his shirt after all the back and forth running made it too hot for both. 

Patrick looks down his body. He’s always had thick shoulders, especially in contrast to his height, but now any inch of softness he had left on him has melted off from all the cardio and lifting he’s doing. Q’s been lobbying for him to start cutting shit out of his diet too, less fat and definitely less sugar, but Patrick thinks he’s doing pretty well for himself, so he certainly doesn’t say no when they all go for shakes and burgers when Ultimate practice ends. 

*

There’s this guy he sees at the gym sometimes, always in these sharp pressed suits or fussy crew-neck sweater and slacks combos. Patrick never sees him train or spar. He always looks grim and unamused, and Patrick catches him watching him fight Versteeg a few times. Every time he does, the guy looks away like Patrick’s a complete failure and isn’t worth his regard. He doesn’t know what the fuck that dude’s problem is. 

He asks the other guys about it one day as they’re all hitting the showers before the gym closes up for the evening. 

“You mean Jonny?” Leddy says, as he steps out of the shower. “Oh yeah. He’s pretty great for a gravy guzzler.” 

“A what?”

“Don’t call him that, Leds,” Brandon says, hands on his hips like a stern school marm. He’s the youngest guy at the gym, younger even than Patrick, and has a serious obsession with Wushu and the Once Upon a Time in China films, which he has attempted to make Patrick watch on more than one occasion. He’s good though, a solid, calm clinch fighter. He looks over at Patrick and says, “Gay, he means gay.” 

There’s not a whole lot to tell about Jonny it seems. They all like him, even though, to Patrick, he seems about as interesting as an afternoon tea party with Laura Bush. He’s apparently some amazing mixed martial arts master, been training since he could walk, yadda yadda. Patrick will believe it when he sees it. He can’t take anybody who wears an actual trench-coat and carries a wood handled umbrella when it rains seriously. 

*

Patrick forgets his water bottle one evening. Gassed after a pretty rough sparring match where he successfully fought off Bollig, he calls a halt and goes to the drinking fountain. Ribs aching, red faced and covered in sweat, he knows he looks like he got the raw end of the deal. He doesn’t even bother to take his sparring gloves off. They’re a good Fairtex pair, the one thing he splurged on in the entire semester. He’s got that horrible dry mouth sensation like no water is ever going to be enough. It first hits his mouth in a rush, and he practically breathes it down, swallowing hard and desperate, until he feels like a normal human again. When he straightens up and turns to go back to the ring, he crashes right into somebody.

“What the fuck? Watch it,” he hisses, gloved hand going to protect his ribs, and looks up to find Jonny staring at him, eyebrow raised. As if Patrick was the one who crashed into him. 

He’s not even sure why the guy is here. It sure as hell isn’t to train. He’s wearing a suit that makes him look like a Wall Street douche, which for all Patrick knows he is.

“Pardon me,” he says, voice dry. 

Patrick lifts his chin, popping out his mouth guard as he waits to see what this prick will do next. 

Jonny laughs at him, an incredulous and humorless chuckle full of mockery and then he moves on like Patrick wasn’t even there. 

Patrick’s learned to keep his head, just because he’ll give a five finger sandwich to any asshole who’s asking him for it, doesn’t mean he goes around jumping people. He considers it for a minute, picturing it quite clearly. Slamming his fist into the bare unprotected nape of Jonny’s neck, once, twice, three times. Depending on how he did it, the spinal cord would tear, arteries would be severed, cervical vertebrae shattered. Patrick’s capable of delivering a punch at about 700 psi. It would kill him. He lets that thought go through him in a red hot sweep, teeth grinding hard into the plastic of his mouth guard. 

*

He knows by now there’s some Vale Tudo style shit going on in high priced underground clubs in Chicago, with The Battle as the culminating event. Q doesn’t exactly condone it, from what Patrick understands, but he’s operating one of the best MMA gyms in Chi-town. There’s a lot of cash attached to these things, so he’s gotta know that some of the kids he trains are going to end up there. A couple of the guys in the gym are competing in them, making extra scratch. Even Jonny according to Saad. It’s only a step above crazy bare-knuckle brawling, but it’s not the scary shit coming out of Brazil. 

There are rules and refs, but it’s still dangerous, with some injury horror stories Leddy delights in sharing. Not that that would stop Patrick. He’s going to be paying student loans for the next 70 billion years. Even if he graduates in three years rather than four. Even if he picks up a job in the summer. He’s an econ major with plans to go into public finance someday, and unless he lands a paid internship with BCG or McKinsey, that debt’ll be hanging over his head forever. If he wins, even a chump change, two-bit fight, he could still be looking at $10,000 in a single night. If that isn’t attractive, Patrick doesn’t know what is. 

So when Bollig invites him to this big thing at some Gold Coast asshole’s penthouse high rise, Patrick goes. There’s money at these things, big money. Rich fuckups who like watching a blood sport. All Patrick needs is an in. 

“What are you wearing?” Bollig asks, scandalized, when Patrick meets up with him. 

Patrick looks down at himself. Black jeans, black long sleeved shirt, black baseball cap. Nearly everything Patrick owns is black. He’d learned long ago that it was easier to hide how many lives clothes had gone through before they ended up in his closet if they were black. “Was I supposed to dress up?” 

Bollig for his part has scrubbed up pretty good, a blazer, a tie, the works. He tugs on the cuffs of his jacket and sighs. “You’ll do.” 

It’s pretty clear that Patrick is out of place as soon as they get through the door. The room pulses with some trashy euro trance straight out of a nightclub. It’s wall-to-wall plants everywhere, like a greenhouse. There’s a ring marked out on a pair of shiny dark mats, two guys bared to the waist, bare knuckle whaling on each other. And all around it there are knots of people milling and talking, drinks in hand, completely oblivious to the two men in the ring. Bollig told him it would be like this. The guy who owns the place is a real bloodthirsty bastard—this isn’t even a real fight, just circus carnage for his guests to watch and enjoy. Everybody looks expensively maintained, with the women dressed like it’s the fucking Golden Globes or something and the men in suits much like Bollig’s. Although Patrick guesses his is a damn sight cheaper than theirs. 

They make the rounds. Bollig seems to know a lot of them, somehow maintaining an easy rapport with them, even with Patrick hanging around—a dark, underdressed shadow at his shoulder. He can tell they’re not impressed with him. What could he have done though? He doesn’t even own a suit. The night is shaping up to be unmitigated disaster. 

It lets up a little when he swings by the bar and starts up a conversation with a pretty girl waiting for her cocktail. She can’t be much older than Patrick, a dark-haired princess, but he knows from the way she runs her eyes over him that he’s got obvious slum appeal to her. He’d laugh at her lack of subtlety, if it wasn’t exactly what he wanted. Besides, she knows what she wants and she’s gonna take it. He respects that. Eventually Bollig swings away from the one percenters to join them. 

“Hey, some of the other guys are here,” Bollig says, nodding a hello to the girl. Patrick doesn’t even remember her name. He’s not sure if she actually told him. 

“Are they fighters like you?” she asks coquettishly, running her hand down Bollig’s besuited bicep. 

She smirks at Patrick where Bollig can’t see it. It’s all an act for this one. She’ll eat him alive. “Yeah,” Bollig says cautiously. “Would you like to meet them?” 

In one of the quieter parts of the penthouse they find Bicks, Brookbank, and this guy, Handzus, who was something of a legend on the UFC circuit a decade ago, even though he has the look of a nerdy dad. He teaches the krav maga and muay thai at the gym still and has been getting on Patrick about his flexibility. He keeps suggesting yoga and pilates, which...okay no. 

Patrick’s stomach sinks when they get a little closer. Of course that asshole Jonny is here, looking like all the other silver-spooned jerkoffs at this party with an import beer in his hand, and another slick fucking suit. Patrick thinks this one might be a three-piece. God this dude is an asshole. He’s talking seriously with two other guys that Patrick hasn’t met before. Well isn’t that nice, everybody’s favorite stick in the mud hanging out here with his friends. Patrick figures all he can do is ignore him. He keeps his eyes firmly trained away from him as he nods at Zeus, and bumps fists with both Bicks and Brooksie in greeting. 

Thankfully, the girl, Sarah it turns out, introduces herself before Patrick can even get to it, thus saving them all from that embarrassment. 

“And who are you?” she says, turning to the guy next to Jonny, interrupting him mid-conversation. He’s tall, gingery, and a little forbidding. He turns his head slowly to look at her, making it clear how little he appreciated her interruption, no matter how pretty she is. She stares back, unbothered. 

Conversation stops around them, everybody silent, waiting to see how this merry-go-round is going to spin out. Patrick looks at Bollig who shrugs and rolls his eyes. 

“Duncan,” the guy says, lips pursed and then points at the two other guys. “Jonny, Brent.” 

Jonny laughs, bright and loud at Duncan’s rudeness. “Excuse my friend, Sarah, we were having a heated debate.” 

“Oh?” she asks, she doesn’t appear to be put off by Duncan at all. If anything, she looks amused. “What about?” 

“About the common fuckups new combatants make,” Duncan replies, emphasizing the swear word. Patrick wants to roll his eyes. _Combatants_? Is this guy for real? Patrick has to roll his lips inward to hide a smile. 

“What do you mean?” she says. “Like not being trained well enough?” 

Jonny shakes his head. “You could practice a thousand hours in the ring, but if you don’t work on your mental game, you can’t win.” 

Patrick doesn’t know if his eyes are deceiving him or not, but he’s pretty sure that Jonny looked over at him just now. Christ. The self-righteousness rolling off this motherfucker. Patrick’s got better things to do than listen to this guy blow smoke. 

Brent speaks up for the first time. “Sometimes new fighters aren’t prepared for it. They get in the cage and they freeze up.” 

“What happens then?” she asks. 

Brent leans forward like he’s telling her a secret. “They get taken down.” 

Sarah looks over at Patrick mischievously. “You’re a new fighter, right? Have you been _working_ on your mental game?” 

Patrick laughs, about to tell her that he’s new to mixed martial arts, not to fighting in general, when Duncan interjects, “A kid like him? He may have killer instinct, but it’s an entirely different game to fight smart.” 

Something dark and twisted grabs a hold of his spine and yanks on it, anger running through him. What gives this guy the right? Patrick ain’t got no truck with anybody, but this shitstain is just coming after him like Patrick fucked his mother. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bollig says, “Let’s lay off the kid. He may be new to fighting as a discipline, but you don’t have to treat him like a complete greenie, Duncs.” 

Duncan shrugs. “Calling it like I see it.” 

“You wanna tell me what this is about?” Patrick asks, voice low and dangerous as he steps into Duncan’s space. 

“Hey, let’s not turn this into a thing,” Bollig says. “Patrick, Duncs is this much of a bastard to everybody, don’t get twisted about it.” 

“Don’t get twisted...” Patrick says slowly. He looks over at Duncan who stares evenly back, seemingly daring him to go for the punch. 

“He just means you fight emotionally,” Jonny says quellingly. 

It has the same effect as screaming ‘chill out’ to an angry person. Patrick was annoyed before. Now he’s been dialed up to an eleven. “Christ, what is with you smug little fuckstains? If you’ve got some sort of problem then man the fuck up.” 

Jonny laughs. That same laugh as before in the gym at the water fountain, like Patrick’s completely beneath him. And that is just...it. 

“You know what?” Patrick says. “You and me, let’s go.” 

“You’re not really disproving my point here,” Jonny replies. 

“Fuck you,” Patrick tells him with a smile, keeping his tone perfectly pleasant. “I meant it.” 

“Patrick, don’t,” Bollig says, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing in warning. On his other side, Bicks and Brooksie both look tense and unhappy. Zeus, by contrast is a study in blankness. Patrick doesn’t give a fuck. He shakes Bollig off. 

“It’s fine, Brandon,” Jonny replies, keeping his eyes on Patrick the whole time. “I’m not going to fight him.” 

“That sure you could win?” Patrick says. “I don’t think you are. I think you’re running scared.” 

Jonny looks over at Seabrook and shrugs like Patrick’s a disobedient dog that shat on the carpet. He starts to turn away. “It was nice to meet you, Sarah.” 

“Y’know, you really are something else.” Patrick laughs mirthlessly. He can’t believe this guy. Where Patrick’s from, throwing this level of shade and expecting to walk away from it isn’t just hubris, it’s insanity. He is so fucking done with this shit. “Listen, you prick, if you win, I will suck your dick.” 

Jonny freezes, face shuttering closed. Brent and Duncan both pause beside him like good little minions. 

“Yeah, I got you now, huh?” Patrick says, laughing mirthlessly. “You like that? The thought of your dick in my mouth? If you’re so sure, come and get it.” 

Jonny stares at him, his blank expression somehow more intense than any glare could be. In one smooth move he strips off his jacket, handing it to Seabs, as he starts rolling up his shirt sleeves. 

“Patrick, you don’t want to do this,” Bollig tells him. “You really, really don’t want to do this. Listen, Jonny’s a reasonable guy. Just apologize, tell him no hard feelings, and we can all be on our way.” 

“No.” Patrick doesn’t have anything else to say but that. 

Bollig spreads his hands in surrender. He and the other guys back up, giving them some space. 

As soon as Jonny’s eyes are on him again, Patrick nods and says, “Ready?” Before Jonny can respond he tags him across the face, snapping his head back. 

Jonny takes a step back, dark eyes burning. He flexes his jaw, as if checking to see if all of his teeth are still there. 

“Cheap,” he says in a low voice as he moves in. 

“Think a few moves ahead, son,” Patrick shoots back, fists up. “Ain’t my fault you’re slow.” 

They trade blows. Jonny’s are mostly exploratory, feeling out Patrick’s guard, looking for weak spots. Defensive fighting bullshit. They’re drawing a crowd. People circling around them. Patrick fends off a left hook and scores another hit on Jonny’s ribs. Jonny absorbs the punch pretty well, barely rocking back a step. Impressive, because it’s ungloved. 

Jonny smiles at him. “You can hit, I’ll give you that.” 

Patrick’s follows it up with a right hand jab, but Jonny knocks his fist aside with his forearm. He was expecting Jonny to step in close, and he’s already got a left uppercut ready for him, but when he does, he surprises Patrick, hooking under his right arm and tugging him straight into a shoulder throw that lands him on the floor with a thud. All the air is knocked from his lungs. He lies, stunned, as Jonny drops down to his knees on Patrick chest, brain taking too long to send the message for another desperate hail mary punch to his hand. The hit to Jonny’s ribs is feeble and Patrick’s next strike he easily fends off, catching and wrenching Patrick’s arm. He can’t defend against the vicious gogoplata Jonny twists him into. He’s never had to. Nobody at the gym is even flexible enough to attempt it. Jonny’s got his left shoulder strung out like a clothes line, shin bearing down so hard on his throat, the cartilage of his adam’s apple is crushed back into his windpipe. Patrick realizes quite clearly that he’s got absolutely no way to get out of this one.

He doesn’t tap. He should. His shoulder’s in danger of being separated at this rate, and dark spots collect on his vision, Jonny’s focused face swims in front of him.

Patrick’s world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this so long ago the SAT was still 2400. Now it’s back to 1600, lol.
> 
> Just some perspective on Buffalo: 31% of people, and half of all children, are in poverty, making it the third poorest city in the United States above a population of 250,000. 
> 
> Phi Delta Theta Illinois Beta was the frat involved with [this.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/racist-frat-prank-chicago_n_3436836.html)
> 
> You can take a look [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnauxGlVm2g) to get a better view on a gogoplata. I can't take credit for the fights. My brother, no lie, helped me choreograph them way back when. So shoutout to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Brooksie claps him on the back. “You know he’s won The Battle, right?”_
> 
> _No, Patrick did not know that. Not that it would’ve changed anything. Brooksie raises his brows at the mulish look Patrick throws at him. “You’re alright, tough stuff,” he says with a grin. “Fucking stupid, but alright.”_
> 
> Patrick has to pay up.

When he comes to, Jonny has already dropped the submission and the crowd of people has started to wander off. The whole thing took less than five minutes. Patrick’s shoulder is still on fire with residual agony, his throat feels like it was compressed under a ton of bricks. He’s never been choked out so effectively or fast in all his life. Jonny slowly gets to his feet, straightening out his trousers and dusting off his shirt sleeves. Brent hands him his jacket and he tugs it on over his shoulders while Patrick’s still lying there.

Jonny glances down at him. “Guess you’ll be sucking my dick,” he adds like a complete afterthought. 

Patrick doesn’t watch him leave. Bollig clears his throat and offers Patrick a hand up. “Man, I told you not to do that.” 

Patrick sighs, leaning onto Bollig more than he would like to admit. “He was stepping on me, man,” the words come out fierce, bitter. 

Bollig shakes his head, telling Patrick exactly what he thinks of that statement. “Well, you landed a couple of solids. And now you’ll know better next time, Jonny’s the big leagues.” 

Brooksie claps him on the back. “You know he’s won The Battle, right?”

No, Patrick did not know that. Not that it would’ve changed anything. Brooksie raises his brows at the mulish look Patrick throws at him. “You’re alright, tough stuff,” he says with a grin. “Fucking stupid, but alright.” 

Neither of them mention that Patrick has just volunteered himself to fellate Toews at a time of his choosing. 

*

He’s starting to think Jonny’s not going to call the bet in. It’s been over a week, he hasn’t heard anything. He’s thrown himself into his classes and he’s been swinging by the gym at Ratner, stretching, pushing himself, working on his flexibility. He realizes now, he’s been focusing too much on the stand up work. In an old school boxing match, Patrick’s pretty sure he could’ve taken him, but he’s needs to improve his ground game. The guys told him to take it easy on his hands after fighting unwrapped and gloveless, but Patrick’s never fought any other way. He’s just leaving Ratner one evening to head back to his dorm, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

It’s a text message notification from an unknown number with an address and a time. Patrick doesn’t have any doubts about who it’s from. He has to stop for a minute, eye closed, leaning up against a wall. What the fuck has he gotten himself into. His fingers clench tight around the strap of his gym bag and then he lets go, exhaling slowly. 

Well, he made his bed, now he’s got no choice but to lie in it. 

The ride on the blue line goes faster than Patrick expected, which is just as well, because the closer it gets to 8 PM, the more wired and angry he feels. Jonny’s apartment building seems completely out of character. Patrick was surprised by the address in the text message, but this is something else entirely. He’d pictured one of those sanitized glitzy high rises in Streeterville, but instead it’s a charming third floor walkup in Logan Square. 

When Patrick buzzes up, the speaker crackles to life with a terse “yeah?” 

Patrick rolls his eyes. “You know who it is.” 

Jonny answers his door in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, his hair damp from a shower. He takes in Patrick’s gym-produced state of deshabille and snorts. “You’re early,” he says, turning around and walking back into the darkened apartment. It’s a nice place, clearly expensive, even if it’s no Lakeshore penthouse. 

“How inconvenient for you,” Patrick replies, dropping his bag to the floor. 

Jonny gets a bottle of water from the fridge, untwists the cap and then takes a long swallow, leaning back against his kitchen counter. When he’s done he gestures at Patrick with the bottle. “Well?” 

Patrick’s filled with a wave of hate so strong and so deep it threatens to snap his control entirely. 

He slowly sinks to his knees before Jonny, keeping his eyes on him the entire time to make it clear that this is in no way surrender. He peels the waistband of Jonny’s sweatpants back with one efficient yank. Jonny doesn’t even flinch, the layers of muscle over his pelvis shift as he breathes, but other than that, he looks entirely disinterested. He’s not even hard. 

“Not worried I’ll bite you?” Patrick says, hoping to put the suggestion in his head. 

Jonny hand flies up lightning quick to grip his chin firmly, tilting it up so that Patrick’s neck is stretched at an odd angle. He peers searchingly into Patrick’s eyes. After a moment, he says, “Nah, you pay your debts.”

Patrick rips his face out of his grip and stares at Jonny’s dick with a weather eye. Not that he wants to be glad about anything in this entire horrifying proceeding, but he’s actually intensely glad that Jonny’s got some serious manscaping going on. He wonders if it’s a gay thing.

Patrick fists him once, experimentally, the first time he’s ever had his hand on a dick that isn’t his own. Jonny starts to stiffen in his grip and Patrick knows, even as much as he fucking refuses to look like he’s suffering any embarrassment at all, that his face is flaming up with a blush. 

When Patrick fits the head to his lips and slowly starts to slide down, Jonny doesn’t even appear to notice. He looks down at Patrick briefly when he gets far enough down to start choking around it, but then looks away again, face bored, taking another swallow from his water. 

Patrick’s not even sure why that amplifies the anger in him by about 200%, but it does. He’s got Patrick at his feet, the least he could do is fucking appreciate it. He brings his hands up to Jonny’s hips, gripping just a little too tight, fingernails biting into the bare skin, waiting for him to make Patrick stop. He doesn’t make Patrick stop—he doesn’t even look down. Patrick’s had his dick sucked a lot. The first time was when he was fourteen at a house party his older cousin snuck him into. He’s been continuing apace in the five years since then. He’s learned by now there’s pretty much no such thing as a bad blowjob. And Patrick’s pretty amateur at this, gag reflex working overtime, especially as Jonny finally, finally starts to harden up, swelling across his tongue, hitting the back of his throat.

Jonny tastes like clean skin with a slight astringent aftertaste of the soap he used, when Patrick pulls his lips back over the head, he pulls off in shocked surprise at the jet of precome that hits his tongue. Jonny looks down at him again, spit-shiny dick bobbing in front of Patrick’s face, and rolls his eyes.

Fuck you, Patrick says in the confines of his own head. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. He refuses to give Jonny the satisfaction. He lets go of one of Jonny’s hips to grab his dick at the base, viciously enjoying the red finger-shaped indents left behind on the tan skin of his hips. There’s no way to win at this, but Patrick sure as hell isn’t going to lose. He slides Jonny back into his mouth, bringing his hand up to meet it so he doesn’t have to shove so far down, ignoring the slick slurping sounds it makes as he pushes back down on it. Soon Jonny doesn’t taste like anything other than Patrick’s own mouth. 

He looks up at Jonny’s face and finds him finally looking back, face impassive, like he’s not hard, getting his dick sucked off in his kitchen. Patrick hates everything about him. He hates the width of Jonny’s dick stretching his mouth and the smooth feel of his skin beneath Patrick’s hands, he hates the way he doesn’t fucking care, and the way he’s looking down at Patrick like he’s nothing. Patrick hates that he lasts for fucking ever—Patrick’s jaw aches and his throat is raw, and his lips abraded and swollen. Jonny’s barely breathing hard.

He doesn’t warn Patrick that he’s about to come and when Patrick pulls off, coughing and spluttering, he simply pulls his sweatpants back up. Patrick glares up at him, dragging his fist across his mouth, and Jonny clears his throat and hands Patrick his half-drunk bottle of water. 

Patrick stares at the bottle in his hand, dumbly. 

“You can show yourself out,” Jonny says breezily, rolling his shoulders and walking off into another room. 

Patrick thinks it’s pretty spectacular that Jonny just assumes he won’t start trashing the place. He can imagine it pretty clearly. Dumping the flat screen tv onto the floor, upending the fucking water bottle all over the slim macbook air sitting on the breakfast bar. He imagines Jonny would have the cops on him in seconds. 

He lets out a mirthless laugh and rolls up to his feet, drinking a long swallow of water and spitting into the sink, because like hell will he go home with the taste of Jonny’s come in his mouth. 

*

Two weeks goes by. Nobody at the gym asks him about the fight with Jonny or whether or not he actually went through with it, for which he’s pathetically grateful. 

He’s getting better, getting more intuitive about holds and how to avoid them. He’s still terrible at kick boxing, but he likes to believe he’s showing improvement on that front. Q hasn’t loudly castigated him during a sparring match for a while. 

Bollig gets him his first fight in the basement level of a parking garage. It’s small potatoes, the prize is only $2000, but that’ll take care of getting himself better equipment, and jesus, he’ll finally be able to buy a laptop, rather than having to use his phone or the computer labs all the time.

He cleans his opponent’s clock. Patrick’s pretty sure the guy’ll be pissing blood for a while from where Patrick punched him in the kidney, while Patrick only has sore ribs and swollen knuckles. The money, paid out in cash, feels pretty damn good in his bag. As do the drinks that people keep buying for him and the girls clamoring to be at his side. 

He gets a suckjob from a pretty redhead in the bathroom and tries desperately not to think about how he knows now what it feels like from the other side. He winds up pulling her off, lifting her up onto the sink while she giggles, pushing her tight dress up her thighs and fucking her until the sensation is gone from his mind completely. She leans back against the mirror when he’s done, high heeled feet dangling off the floor, makeup and hair wrecked.

“That was...” she trails off, lazily waving a hand at him with a smile. “that was unreal.” 

He grins at her and leaves so that she can take some time to fix herself up. 

He has two more fights after that, the prizes just a little bit bigger, and he wins both. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel the clawing sensation of horrible desperate poverty. There’s more than enough left over to send back to his mom and his sisters. 

“Erica, you have to promise me you’re not going to give any of it to the asshole,” Patrick says, calling from a Western Union as he’s waiting to wire her the money. The asshole being her boyfriend, who’s two years older than Patrick, and deals Oxy like fucking everybody else he knows from back home.

“I won’t!” she says, and then more softly, “I won’t, Patty.” 

“Good.” 

The semester gets rough after that, with midterms looming in the not too distant future. Patrick’s busy, but he’s not drowning in it. Andrew spends a lot of time whining at him in the library and asking Kaner to explain Posnerian law and economics, and then bitching when he realizes that Kaner didn’t take notes that day and doesn’t have anything for him to copy off of. 

“I don’t understand how your brain works!” he says. 

Patrick shrugs. “Me neither, man.” 

The only issue is that he’s got absolutely zero time for any of the MMA classes he’s taking or even to squeeze in training at the gym. Ratner closes at midnight, but Patrick’s been cramming in review sessions and everything else, so it’s been hard to find the time. Q finally takes pity and gives him a key to his gym so that he can train after hours. It’s a little weird, echoing and quiet with just the whirr of the central air overhead, but Patrick likes being alone. 

On the third night that he does it, he finds Jonny already there, working the bags. It’s the first time that Patrick’s seen him in gear, a simple t-shirt and shorts, hands gloved up. 

He nearly walks out right then. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near that fucker, thank you, but he also needs to keep training. It’s become something of a drug for him, one he can't easily be parted with. 

Jonny stills the bag he’s working on with a flattened palm when he sees Patrick come in to stare at him. Patrick stares right back. After a moment, Jonny looks away and starts up a punch combo on the bag. 

Patrick tries to ignore him as he runs through a few exercises of his own, but Jonny’s presence is this huge dark spot in his mind. 

The fourth time he has to stop just to breathe himself calm, he finally swings around and says, “I wanna go again.” 

Jonny stops and stills the bag a second time, wiping sweat off his brow with his forearm. “Because that worked out so well for you last time.” 

“You’re not going to get any better punching something that can’t hit back,” Patrick tells him, climbing into the the ring. 

“You trying to get your get backs?” Jonny asks, looking vaguely amused by the idea. “Listen, I don’t need you to get my dick sucked.” 

Patrick has a sudden insight. He got Jonny like this last time. “You liked it. You try to pretend like you don’t. I know your type. I would bet good money that you’ve jerked off thinking about it.” He leans forward, forearms braced against the ropes. “I think I make you pretty good and hot.” 

Jonny shakes his head at him. “You just don’t learn, do you?” 

“You telling me you aren’t itching to get my mouth on your cock again?” 

Jonny flexes his hands, and blows out a breath. For a moment, Patrick thinks he’s actually going to walk away. 

“Same terms?” Jonny offers pleasantly enough, as he climbs into the ring. The only sign that he’s royally angry is the murder in his eyes. 

“Mmhm,” Patrick tells, him already going in for the first punch. This time Jonny gets his hands up. He follows it up with a sharp volley that keeps Patrick mostly on the defensive, edging him backwards, but Patrick takes the blows, blocking them with his forearms, waiting for the right moment. Jonny’s conditioning is great, he’s barely breathing hard, and he fights with the same restraint and economy he displays all the time, moves flowing easily together. Patrick matches him breath for breath. He’s operating purely on instinct, sliding into the fight this time in a way he hadn’t been able to the last time. 

Jonny underestimates how motivated Patrick is, and when he goes in for a roundhouse kick to the body, Patrick’s two steps ahead. He catches Jonny’s calf and tugs him straight into the cross Patrick was lining up for his chin. Jonny stumbles back a few steps, off-balance. Patrick rung his bell pretty good. He’s filled with a vicious pride. The cross had been perfect, textbook, with all the force of Patrick’s shoulder behind it. 

But he can see Jonny already shaking it off, about to regain his equilibrium. Patrick football tackles him with a yell, shoulder connecting solidly with Jonny’s thighs. It’s not pretty, a street move really. Jonny eats mat hard and before he can get up, Patrick’s on his chest, raining heavy punches down on him. Patrick sees his lip split against his teeth, red blood welling up. Each blow connecting with Jonny’s face makes the white hot rage inside him ease. Finally, finally, the little fucking rich boy is going to get what’s coming to him. 

Jonny surprises him by getting his palms up, yanking Patrick’s wrists out of the air and dragging him down, right into a triangle choke between his legs. Jonny’s thighs tighten around his neck, forcefully choking Patrick with Patrick’s own bicep. Rage, pain, fear coalesce in his gut as he begins to lose air. He panics for one fraught moment, chest tight, before calm settles in. Patrick’s not letting it happen this time. _This time_ the fight is his. With a strength he didn’t know he had, he gets his legs under him, lifting Jonny off the ground and then slamming him back against the mat. 

Jonny cries out, face twisting, teeth red with blood, but the pressure of his thighs doesn’t ease up, and Patrick does it a second time, harder, snapping Jonny’s head back on his neck. He’s done, Patrick can see it, the glazed expression on his face, his desperate breaths as he fights to hang on. Patrick lifts up, arms aching from the strain, ready to slam him back to the mat a third time—he wants to shatter him, pulp him against the mats. At the last second, with Jonny lifted clear off the ground, he taps a gloved hand to the top of Patrick’s head. 

Patrick almost ignores it. He could kill him. He really could. He’s not even sure he would feel bad about it, but the cold hard reality is that this is an unsanctioned fight without any witnesses, even now, Jonny could easily claim Patrick assaulted him. 

Jonny drops the choke when it becomes clear that Patrick’s going to respect him calling it quits, falling back to the mats in an ungainly pile of limbs. Patrick can breathe again, at last, but it’s Jonny who’s taking desperate gasps of air. His nose is bleeding and he’ll have one hell of a black eye tomorrow. Slowly sitting up, he gingerly turns his head to spit into his gloved palm. It comes out scarlet against the black leather. 

Patrick rolls his shoulders and climbs under the ropes to get out of the ring. He gathers his stuff up and leaves. 

*

He waits a week and then a week becomes two, just to make Jonny sweat it the same way he did. But then it occurs to him, where the hell is he going to put Jonny on his knees? His room’s off limits because of his roommate, and he doesn’t even want to explain getting Jonny through the front door of the dorms. Like hell he’s going back to Jonny’s place. He wants it to be on his own turf, which doesn’t exactly give him a lot of options. 

The decision gets made for him on the night he and a bunch of the guys from the gym go to a bar to watch the Bisping Kennedy fight. He brings Sharpy with him, because Sharpy’s hilarious, even if he’s obsessed with ultimate frisbee, and because he won’t stop bugging Patrick about how he never does anything but fight and train. 

Much to Patrick’s disgust, Jonny’s there. He must’ve pulled the rod from his ass for the evening, because he’s in a normal sweater and jeans. Patrick almost didn’t recognize him when they walked in. Especially laughing and chatting amiably with Versteeg like he isn’t humorless prig. In Patrick’s mind, it’s a complete miracle that the other guys actually like him. He’d asked Bollig about it and gotten a helpless shrug in return. 

“Jonny’s hard to get to know,” he’d explained, “but he’s a pretty cool dude.” 

Yeah, Patrick’s not seeing it. 

He introduces Sharpy around and doesn’t bother with Jonny. For his part, Jonny seems content to ignore him right back, eyes on the TV, taking a swallow from his beer, like Patrick didn’t just blatantly snub him. 

It’s awkward though. Patrick finds it really difficult to just laugh and talk comfortably with the other guys. Jonny appears not to have any such reservations. Now, Patrick’s the one left watching the TV like none of the rest of them are there. They’re just getting the corner cam and the walk out, but it’s something to keep himself occupied. Patrick doesn’t, as a rule, start shit. He’ll finish it easy as pie, but you gotta throw it down to get him to pick it up. Just listening to Jonny’s inane conversation makes him want to grind his face into the bar. Eventually he gives up, right in the middle of the third round, and goes to the bathroom for a piss. When he opens the door after washing his hands, he finds Jonny on the other side, arms crossed. 

It’s so unexpected that Patrick startles. “What the fuck?” 

Jonny pushes him back into the bathroom with a hand on his chest. 

“What the fuck?” he repeats, as Jonny kicks the toilet-lid flat and shoves Patrick down upon it. 

“You earned it, stud,” Jonny tells him, false and bright, sinking down to the floor. Keeping eye contact, he pushes Patrick’s knees apart and slides between them. Patrick has to restrain a shudder from the wave of heat that washes over him at the sight of it. He’s gone instantly, blindingly, achingly hard—arousal mixing with anger and dread. 

Jonny keeps his eyes on Patrick’s as he pulls the zipper on his fly down. He doesn’t look uncomfortable or even pissed off, just cheekily amused. It makes Patrick’s chest go uncomfortably tight, hard for him to breathe. When he pulls Patrick’s erection free of boxers with a sure hand, he drops his eyes. His dick is thick and full, rising up straight, the head an angry pink with just the slightest shimmer of precome at the tip.  
Jonny gives it an experimental tug, and says, with a laugh, “Not bad.” 

Patrick flushes, horrified. These are deep murky waters and he’s unsure what the hell is happening to him or how he lost the upper hand. Even Jonny coming right out and complimenting his dick makes him feel like it’s him with his knees to the tile. When he envisioned this, ragefully fueling himself on the bags, this wasn’t it. He considers knocking Jonny away from him, telling him to fuck off, that Patrick doesn’t need his dick sucked by a queer. But it occurs to him that maybe that’s what Jonny wants, to unsettle him so bad that Patrick leaves with his tail between his legs. 

Patrick leans back against the toilet tank and breathes out, a long slow exhale, forcing himself to relax. He keeps his eyes on the wall opposite him and restrains a flinch when Jonny’s mouth closes around him. The suction is hot and tight. Just the right level of pressure. His hand flies up, involuntary and unstoppable, clutching the corner of the sink, hard. This whole thing is fucking embarrassing. He braces himself against doing something stupid like cursing or crying out. Jonny can never know that the hot suction of his mouth has made Patrick’s legs jelly. It’s not good head, he lies to himself. 

Mercenary is perhaps the best word for it—the way Jonny pulls off now and again, stroking him firmly, working his own spit into Patrick’s skin. Just when Patrick’s getting used to the sure grip and ridge of calluses on his palm, Jonny descends again, taking him deep. He’s confident, assured, doesn’t even have to hold Patrick’s hips to keep him from bucking, just takes it in stride. Of course he knows what he’s doing, Patrick thinks, furious at himself. He’s fucking gay, he’s sucked dick, that’s a thing gay guys do. In Patrick’s whole life though, he’s never had a blowjob like this. He looks down, watching Jonny’s throat work around him, and has to bite his lip hard and squeeze his eyes shut. God, what is this? How the hell is he losing it like this?

The next time Jonny pulls off, he dips in only seconds later, dragging the point of his tongue across the slit and down over the glans. Patrick watches in fascination as Jonny feeds his dick slowly past his lips until his mouth meets his own knuckles. Then back up to do it again. 

Patrick’s thighs tremble as he fights to stave off orgasm, lower lip caught between his teeth so tight that it aches. Harsh breaths echo around the tiled bathroom, his own, he thinks distantly. He hates it, the way he sounds, as if he’s a fucking middle schooler letting a girl just breathe on his dick behind the bleachers. If there is any kind of god the music and the noise of the fight on TV outside is enough to cover up what’s happening in here. 

He makes the mistake of looking down at Jonny, watching his lips stretched wide around the shaft, cheeks pulled in tight. 

That’s it. He can’t even help it. It moves through him so fast it almost hurts. He imagines come flooding Jonny’s mouth, overflowing past his lips, but Jonny doesn’t miss a drop. It’s over, Patrick realizes, shocked and winded. That really happened. The hands tucking Patrick’s softening, over-sensitive dick back into his shorts are still attached to Jonny’s strong wrists. This touch, it could be something else entirely, but then Jonny snaps the elastic waistband against his skin with enough sting to make Patrick wince. 

He clears his throat, suddenly brusque. Patrick remains slumped against the toilet tank, thoughts racing. How are they gonna play this one off? That was over far too fast, but not short enough to be noticed. What’s he going to tell the guys? They knew about the first bet, something inside him burns about sharing the next one, even if he was just getting his his own back. Jonny, by contrast, seems unperturbed. He smoothly gets to his feet and goes to the sink, rinsing first his mouth out and then carefully washing his hands. He doesn’t look at Patrick once. Instead, he eyes himself in the mirror, like he’s making sure he looks okay. His lips are a little swollen, but it’s the only sign that anything happened at all. 

Wiping his hands on a paper towel, his eyes briefly drop to Patrick’s, before he chucks it in the waste basket. For a moment, it appears like he’s going to say something. Patrick waits, but Jonny turns around, unlocks the door, and steps out. The door slams closed behind him. There are cheers coming from the bar, the fight must be over and Patrick’s left, still sitting on top of the toilet, completely capsized. Jonny barely even said a word. He rubs the heel of his palm over his dick and shudders. 

*

Patrick goes on a tear after that, a different hook up every night, trying to erase the memory of that moment in the bathroom. He even accidentally sexciles his roommate at one in the morning when the guy is out taking a shower and Patrick assumes he’s gone for the night. He feels pretty bad about it and buys the guy breakfast the next day, promising that it won’t happen again. 

After that, he makes it a point to always go back to the girl’s room, which makes it easier anyway, because it’s not like he wants to stick around, spooning in their tiny twin beds. 

“You have got to slow down,” Andrew tells Patrick one night, dragging him nearly insensate back to Broadview. 

“Can’t,” Patrick says, stumbling over his own feet and laughing hysterically. He trips and Andrew has to tug him back up to his feet. 

“God, I hate you.” Andrew tows him along. “I don’t even know how you pull so many chicks.” 

“Girls here are easy,” he replies. The stairs prove tricky to navigate. God, when did walking become so hard? Just last week he was learning to do spinning kicks off the cage, now figuring out how not to hook his own feet on the steps is proving a monumental undertaking. 

Andrew doesn’t care about his troubles, and replies, outraged, “They are not!” 

“Settle down, son,” Patrick says, poking him in the side and laughing uproariously. “Not like, easy to get in bed—easy to figure out.” 

Andrew fishes Patrick’s keys out of his pants with a disgusted snort. “How do you figure?” 

For once his roommate is out for the night, which is good, because Patrick manages to stumble into nearly every object in his room, making an incredible racket, before faceplanting on the bed. It takes him a lot of effort to turn over to answer Andrew’s question. 

“Like, they just want you to be interested in what they have to say,” he explains, expansively gesturing and accidentally knocking his elbow against his nightstand. “They got nothing on the crazy bitches I knew at home.” 

“This is incredibly unhelpful advice.” 

“Sorry?” Patrick offers apologetically and then starts wrestling with his jeans. “God, I hate pants. Pants are a crime against nature.” 

“Patrick?” 

Patrick stops fiddling with his zipper and tries to get his elbows under him to look at Andrew. “Yeah?” 

“You don’t really talk about home…” 

Patrick sighs and slumps back to the bed. “Home is stupid.” 

Andrew sighs and wishes him goodnight after that, shutting the door carefully behind him. Patrick weakly tries to get under the covers and then gives up. 

Home. 

He misses the way his dad cooks bacon, and the beat up old jalopy of a Datsun he learned to drive in, and the shitty scrubby park three blocks from their house with the death-defying play structure that they grew up climbing on. There was a little community garden next to that and Patrick used to steal chives and tomatoes and sunflower seeds and bring them back home to his mother. She never really knew what to do with them. She couldn’t cook much. The good food was always at his grandparent’s house. He misses his sisters, and going to Sabres games because the tickets were dirt fucking cheap, and the summer nights spent drinking over-sugared wine coolers in the backyard, because his mother and aunts loved them. 

But he doesn’t miss the boarded up houses, collapsing in on themselves, as disinvestment spread like a disease over Genesee and Broadway and Sycamore. He doesn’t miss the rusted skeletons of cars on the lawns, the chain link fences, and the garbage that was always overflowing from the trash cans. He doesn’t miss the way everybody gave up and gave in, and accepted their place in this misery and never tried to make it beautiful or better. Some kids pulled out all of the plants in the community garden when Patrick was a freshman in high school, nobody ever bothered to replant them. The little fenced off plot was taken over by dandelions. 

He doesn’t miss all of the friends he grew up with slowly getting hooked on oxy and amphetamines and turning into husks of their former selves. He doesn’t miss the water getting shut off and the power getting shut off and the gas getting shut off. He doesn’t miss praying never to get sick or having his friend Jake’s grandmother stitch up his eyebrow after he took a bottle to the face, because they were too scared they would get arrested to go to the emergency room. He doesn’t miss the sick desperate fear that there wouldn’t be enough money to pay for the SATs, that he wouldn’t have a ride to the testing center because his mother simply wouldn’t get out of bed she was so hungover. 

He doesn’t miss being scared about everything all of the fucking time. 

He’s never going back. 

Not for anything.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Ugh.” Patrick spots Jonny at the bar, chatting with an attractive dark-haired man who looks like he’s a few years older than him. They’re flirting, he abruptly realizes. He watches the guy lean into Jonny’s space, smiling at him, and says “Ugh,” again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going a bit faster than every seven days, because the writing is going a bit faster than I thought. Hopefully that'll continue! Thanks to everyone for your comments! They've been a delight.

Spring break comes and Patrick stays on campus. Meanwhile, all of his friends are off to Palm Springs and Mexico and the Bahamas. Sharpy pointed out that Patrick could’ve joined them on their trip to Vegas if he wanted. He hasn’t lost a bout yet and he’s collected enough winnings now to pay for it. But Patrick is far too terrified to spend that money. He’s going to need it and every time he sees the debits in his account, escalating, to pay for books and classes and even the odd movie here and there, he freaks out and decides not to even buy a cup of coffee or a soda for a week. He’s slowed down on the partying, partially because Andrew has taken to being a real pain in the ass about it, but mostly because he got a surprisingly low grade on a calc test he was sure he aced. He’d barely left the library for a week after that, imagining his scholarship slipping from his fingers, leaving him with the loan and nothing else to show for it. 

The break blessedly means a respite from the coursework. Patrick throws himself into training at the gym. He kicks Bollig’s ass in a sparring match and he counts that as a major victory, since every other time he’s gone against him, he’s been overwhelmed by his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai moves. He’s getting better by leaps and bounds and he’s finally got enough flexibility out of his lower back that he can sit with his legs in front of him in pike position and wrap his palms around his ankles. 

He hasn’t seen Jonny since that night in the bar. He hasn’t been around at all, but Patrick can’t shake the feeling that he lost that confrontation.

One evening, he gets to the gym a little later than usual and finds Jonny lazily sparring with Duncan. There’s nobody else there, which means bag work and shadow boxing, because he sure as shit isn’t going to ask either one of them to spar with him. 

Jonny leaves the ring for a moment and Duncan comes up to the ropes, stripping his gloves off as he goes. 

“Caught your last fight,” he calls. 

The one he nearly lost. Of course. “Good for you,” Patrick bites back. 

Duncan laughs. “No hard feelings, kid, Brandon was right. I really am an asshole to everybody.” 

“Seriously, what the fuck do you want?” Patrick asks, punctuating it with a particularly hard kick to the bag. 

Duncan raises his palms, amused, like Patrick’s a little misbehaving puppy. 

“Leave him alone, Duncs,” Jonny says, walking back into the room with his water bottle. 

“Hey,” Patrick says, “nobody fucking asked you.” 

Jonny squeezes a jet of water into his mouth and rolls his eyes. 

Patrick straightens up and steps away from the bag. “Why the fuck are you rolling your eyes at me?”

Duncan looks back and forth between them and then gets down from the ring. “Okay, Jonny, I’m peacing out. Whatever this is, it’s between you guys.” Patrick finds that pretty hilarious, since he’s managed to start shit twice now. But whatever, his issue isn’t with asocial jerks, it’s with snotty, coddled little pricks who were handed everything in life, and still think they have the right to rip on everybody else. 

“Why does everything have to be a battle with you?” Jonny replies, barely acknowledging Duncan as he goes off to the hit the showers. 

Patrick snorts derisively. “Spoiled little bitches like you wouldn’t understand, I guess.” 

Jonny drops the hand that’s holding the water bottle to his side. “What did you call me?”

“Little bitch? Haven’t heard that one before?” Patrick mocks, turning back to the bag and stabbing it with a couple of hard punches. 

“I’m not doing this with you again.” 

Patrick shrugs, doesn’t look away from the bag swaying in front of him. “Why would you, you fucking fairy.” 

Jonny laughs, this harsh bitter thing that makes Patrick dart his eyes over to him in genuine surprise. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“Yeah? Is it?” Patrick answers. “I could go to my knees for you in public and nobody would think so.” 

Jonny levels a look at him, one that runs the length of Patrick’s body, reminding him how hard and fast he came with Jonny’s mouth on him. “You wanna bet?”

Patrick feels the shadow of unease creep in, even as he spreads his palms. “Bring it.” 

This time they don’t even bother with the ring. What’s the point? There’s no ref to call it. The only thing that made Patrick respect Jonny’s tap last time was his own pragmatism and unwillingness to get arrested. 

Jonny opens with a good 1-2 punch, and follows with a left hook Patrick wasn’t expecting, clipping his jaw and driving him back a step. Bright hot pain flares. He tongues the side of his cheek, the metallic tang of blood meeting it. He pauses for a moment, rolling his shoulders. There’s no way Jonny can out-box him and it’s cute that he would even think to try. 

Patrick fakes and drives forward with 1-3-2 punch combo. Jonny blocks all three strikes, but doesn’t see the hit to the body coming. Patrick gets him hard, right over the kidney, and Jonny grimaces, pivoting away just in time to avoid the next punch. Patrick presses with a fast flurry of strikes that Jonny successfully fends off, but the last, a solid uppercut to the jaw, snaps him back nearly 180 degrees, offering his back right up to Patrick. 

Patrick goes for his waist, tightening his arms around his hips and clinching him into a lock. If he can knee Jonny in the thigh a few times, from this angle, he can soften him up for a big throw. He’s got him now, Patrick’s sure of it. So sure that when Jonny reaches between his own knees to clutch at his planted leg, he doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.

Patrick’s already flying through the air, pitched straight over Jonny’s shoulder when he sees the trap for what it is, and by then, Jonny’s got him in a solid knee bar. First thing he learned at the gym was not to fuck around with knee bars. A good solid crack and that’s the end of your ability to walk right. Not even Patrick has the guts or the bravado to power through one. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Patrick cries, slamming his flattened palm into the mat before Jonny even has to push to hyperextend the joint. 

Jonny lets go of his leg as soon as he sees the tap and rolls Patrick off of him with a hard shove. Patrick scrambles away, getting his knees under him. Furious at himself for falling for that, his chest heaves from the frustration rushing through him. He should know better—however the fuck he may feel about Jonny, he should know better. He can see it now too, the way Jonny had played him. There’s no way somebody with as much experience would just offer him his back. Q would be shaking his head at him right now. Patrick’s so angry he has to bite back the embittered yell threatening to tear past his lips. 

“You know, if you stopped going for the KO, you wouldn’t get yourself in trouble,” Jonny says, wiping sweat from his brow. 

Patrick closes his eyes, he can’t look at that smug fucking face any longer. It burns him that he’s barely even winded, didn’t even have the chance to prove himself, the whole thing lasted under a minute. His jaw’s a bit tender, but it’s like falling at the starting line and losing the race before even getting to run a step. 

Jonny scoops his water bottle up off the floor, shakes out his shoulders, and leaves for the locker room. Patrick hates how he always does that without a backwards glance, as if Patrick’s both out of sight and out of mind. He looks at the bag in front of him, staring at it as it sways on the ceiling. He imagines Jonny’s face on it and that moment weeks ago when he could so clearly picture killing him. If this was out on the streets, Jonny wouldn’t stand a chance, he thinks. He throws a punch so hard that his knuckles light up in pain and the bag slides along its track on the ceiling.

That bet he made, what the fuck is he going to do now? 

He winds up staying until two in the morning, working his hands raw, trying to burn out the desperate and directionless fury inside him so that he can breathe again. 

* 

Patrick finally wins his first fight in the ring by submission, rather than KO. Taking his opponent to the ground, Patrick wings his arm back in a hammerlock he learned the hard way the first time he ever got arrested. 

The purse is $10,000. The biggest he’s won yet and a sign that he’s moving out of the two-bit brawls held in basements and warehouses and into the world of private clubs and organized tournaments. If he can keep it up, he has a real shot at qualifying for The Battle. 

To celebrate, on the last day of his spring break he goes with Versteeg, Bollig, to a warehouse party at Open Secret Studios. Patrick’s made it a thing not to dress up for these things, just to show up in his jeans and a baseball cap when everybody else looks like a New York Runway Show. In truth, it’s not so much a thing as it is a refusal to waste his money on a suit. He doesn’t give a shit what other people think about his clothes. Bollig tells him that people are calling him “eccentric” in a bid to horrify him into getting some snappier threads, but Patrick just shrugs. He is a-ok with that. But tonight it doesn’t even matter, because the crowd is a mix of ravers as well as the typical over-moneyed youngbloods. Next to the club kids, he just looks normal. 

“Ugh.” Patrick spots Jonny at the bar, chatting with an attractive dark-haired man who looks like he’s a few years older than him. They’re flirting, he abruptly realizes. He watches the guy lean into Jonny’s space, smiling at him, and says “Ugh,” again. 

“What?” Bollig asks and then follows his gaze. He sighs. “You know, I don’t know what your deal with Jonny is. Before that whole thing at the party, I would’ve thought you’d get along great.” 

Patrick looks at him incredulously. “You thought _we_ would’ve gotten along?” 

“Yeah,” Bollig replies, with a shrug. “I mean, Jonny’s a good guy when you’re not threatening to suck his dick.” 

“Oh shut up,” Patrick says, shoving at his shoulder. He abandons Bollig for the bar. Jonny can stay the fuck out of his way. 

He does pretty well at it, talking with a group of stacked blondes by the bar for most of the night. Their names are Sandy, Sam, and Shannon and they claim they’re cheerleaders for the Chicago Bulls and Patrick’s starting to think he might actually be able to pull all three of them. 

“Wanna go somewhere quiet?” One of them, Sandy, he’s pretty sure, asks.

Patrick smiles. Yeah, that sounds promising. “Lead the way.” 

Sandy grabs his hand with a grin, tugging him behind her. Shannon and Sam laugh, tagging along after them. They stumble out all four of them onto the back patio, the sound of hardcore electronica falling away. Sandy giggles and tugs Patrick’s shirt front, while Shannon pushes up behind him, breasts crushed against his shoulder blades. He’s just dropping his head to kiss Sandy when the moment is ruined by a very loud and obnoxious throat clearing. He stops and looks over to find the dude that was flirting with Jonny sitting in the shadows at one of the tables with a group of others, while the man himself sits on a chair tilted onto its back legs, absentmindedly scrolling through something on his cellphone. 

“We bothering you?” Patrick asks sweetly. 

Jonny looks up at the sound of his voice. 

“You should take your fratboy show on the road,” the guy says. There’s a half-ashed cigarette in his hand and he takes a deliberate suck on it in a way that’s probably meant to seem suave, but just makes him look like a powertool. 

“Really, guy?” Patrick asks. “You a little frustrated? He won’t put out?” He jerks his head at Jonny. 

Jonny drops the chair forward onto its front legs with a loud deliberate clack, face shuttering. Patrick lifts his chin, gut churning uneasily. He’s suddenly pretty sure he knows what’s coming. 

“I think you owe me a blowjob,” Jonny says. His voice is flat, but he leans back in the chair in an insouciant sprawl, expression inscrutable. A part of Patrick is relieved that they’re finally getting it out in the open so it won’t be a sword of damocles over his head any longer. The other part of himself wants to wretch up everything he drank tonight. 

“You wanna get some like this?” he asks, managing to keep his tone light. The group of people around them freeze, unsure of what’s going on, or where the tension is coming from. His three little blondes are quiet at his back. 

“On your knees, Patrick,” Jonny replies, staring him down. He widens his legs in his chair, denim pulling tight across his thighs, the slight outline of his dick made visible. 

Patrick crosses the courtyard and sinks to his knees in front of Jonny’s legs. They’re long, he thinks in the abstract. Patrick’s at his knees, but still a good distance away from his junk. He keeps his eyes firmly trained on Jonny, to show him that no part of him is beaten. A bet is a fucking bet. If Jonny wants his cock sucked by Patrick, well, who’s the real fag here?

When Patrick leans forward, Jonny’s thighs bracketing his sides, people start whooping. The girls Patrick was trying to make something happen with, the asshole flirting with Jonny, everybody it seems. A chant goes up—‘do it, do it, do it’—from around the courtyard. Patrick’s not even surprised, these people will give away their green to see people like Patrick and Jonny kill each other in a cage, let alone participating a public sex act. Jonny doesn’t give any sign of having noticed. 

Patrick brutally yanks the zipper on his fly down like pulling off a bandaid. Just get it done. Jonny barely seems to register Patrick ungently shoving the waistband on his boxers down, revealing his dick. He’s hard already, unlike last time. When Patrick closes his hand on it, it twitches a little in his grip. 

It takes a lot to close the distance between Jonny’s cock and his mouth. All these sick fucks watching them like they’re pay-per-view. But Patrick isn't any fucking welcher, and it's not gay, because it's just the terms of a fucking bet. He sucks the head into his mouth. 

Jonny’s not just out of the shower this time, but that clean soap salt taste is the same, a little alkaline on his tongue. People keep chanting, voices ugly and sharp. Patrick knows his cheeks are on fire and his hands are shaking. He reaches up to grip Jonny’s thighs hard to disguise the tremble. Jonny exhales, short and sharp, muscles shifting under his grip. 

His desire to just get it over with as fast as possible has him choking himself on Jonny’s cock, trying to shove it deeper than he’s ready for. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes, he struggles to breathe through his nose. 

Jonny knocks him in the side with his knee and Patrick glares up at him, lips still stretched taut around his shaft. “Slow,” Jonny says. 

Patrick considers snapping his teeth closed around him for one brief moment, but bitterly finds himself complying anyway. Jonny drops his head back, eyes fluttering closed when Patrick slowly pushes down on him. He sucks hard, tongue curling along the underside of his shaft. He keeps forgetting to breathe and then has to pause, dick in his mouth, purposefully sucking in a deep breath through his nose.

“You’re kind of a natural at this, you know?” Jonny comments, a little gravel in his voice. 

Somebody, Patrick suspects one of his blondes, gives a loud whoop. Patrick burns with humiliation and anger. At this point it’s only his fucking word, for whatever that’s worth, that’s keeping him from biting him. 

And then Jonny does the unthinkable. He slides his fingers along the hair curling at the edge of his snapback, brushing over the shell of his ear, either by accident or design. “Doing so good,” he breathes, biting at his lip, chin dropping to his chest. 

Patrick can’t help the sound that comes out of his mouth with dick on his tongue and that simple touch to his ear reverbing through him. The approval makes him shiver, involuntarily and inexorable, tapping right into the small part of him that always, always worries he’s not good enough, and he’s going to end up right back on Genesee Street, slowly fading away. A horrible frisson of shame travels down his spine. He’s sucking dick on his knees in front of a crowd, and he knows Jonny’s just saying it to strip away the last of his pride, but not even Patrick could imagine how deep this one goes. 

He meets Jonny’s eyes; they’re half-lidded with Jonny blinking back at him almost lazily. The frustration and anger rises up in his stomach and his hands clench even tighter on Jonny’s thighs. Patrick’s thick and stiff, caught by his jeans, and Jonny doesn’t even have to see it to know. Patrick doesn’t know how Jonny knows, but he’s sure of it. And Jonny could tell them, he could announce to everyone how even past the indignity of it, Patrick’s rocked by this so hard he could pound nails. Jonny holds his gaze, but he keeps his mouth shut, and it’s worse somehow, that at any moment he could use the knowledge to flay Patrick open. 

Patrick tries to look away, but Jonny drags his fingers along Patrick’s jaw, rising up just enough to flick another burning trail over Patrick’s ear. Patrick hunches his shoulders, involuntarily sucking harder, and Jonny tips his head back, a soft “uh” noise issuing past his lips. 

Jonny breathes deep, closes his hand on the fingers Patrick’s dug into his thigh. “Christ, Patrick, your mouth.” 

The shitpill who was hard up for Jonny earlier makes a theatrical retching noise and flings his chair back. “I’m not fucking watching this bullshit.” 

Patrick can’t help feeling a little triumph. So Jonny might’ve fubared Patrick’s night, but he’s not going home with that bitchy little hipster for sure now. He closes his eyes, tries to imagine he’s between the thighs of Adrienne Wilsen, but it’s next to impossible with a dick forcing its way down his throat. His traitorous brain puts him back in that Logan Square apartment, but this time Jonny cards his fingers through his curls, whispers soft assurances. Patrick tries to think of something else, anything else. He’d probably fully go to his knees for Lebron James, or fuck, Nate Campbell. It doesn’t work, when Jonny’s quads tense up under his palms, granite-solid, he’s right back in the moment. 

Just like last time, Jonny doesn’t warn him, but Patrick learned from then just what his tells are, and when Jonny comes bitter down his throat, he’s ready for it. Jonny sits, winded, his dick slipping past Patrick’s lips. The moment stretches into two. Patrick keeps his head up, maintaining eye contact as he turns his head and spits Jonny’s come to the pavement. The taste is still heavy on his tongue, but he scrubs at his mouth with the back of his hand anyway. Cheers go up around them, reminding Patrick just where they are. His three blondes are actually whistling at him. He pretends not to notice, expression as defiant as he can manage with a hardon in his pants that is only shielded by Jonny’s bulk in front of him. Without preamble, Jonny rolls to his feet and does up his pants, making Patrick sink back onto his heels so he can pass. 

When Patrick meets his eyes, the fuckstick winks at him before disappearing into the crush of people inside the studio. 

*

Patrick doesn’t go to the gym for a week. He’s not sure what happened after he left the patio, because he got so far into his cups Bollig had to drag him back to the dorms. He doesn’t know how Bollig found the right room or got him into bed. He wonders all about it until Andrew reveals Bollig called him at 4 AM, because he was the most frequently dialed contact on Patrick’s phone.

“What even happened at that party, man?” Andrew asks. 

Patrick shakes his head. The one thing he desperately wishes he could forget is clear as crystal in his head. After he texts Bollig an apology and an “I owe you one,” he resolves to be better about the drinking. The last time he was that blackout, he was fifteen and it was off of apple schnapps from his friend Timmy’s grandma’s liquor cabinet. They drank so much of it just to see what would happen that Timmy had to go to the hospital and be force-fed charcoal. Patrick doesn’t remember any of that though—just the way he puked for two whole days after, nothing staying down and head splitting. 

He runs along the lake and shadowboxes in his room while his roommate watches bemused. The guy looks like he’s considering asking Patrick a few questions about it, but they’ve never talked, and Patrick’s not about to start now. He hits the books hard, gets so ahead on reading he almost considers starting on his term papers early. 

A few days later he gets the dubious honor of having a fight busted up by the cops—a first for him. He was winning, but all he gets for his trouble is a solid crack to the jaw, bruised ribs, and a ten block sprint to the L before he loses them in the crush of late-night commuters. He doesn’t know what it is about him that makes cops zero in on him. Whatever it is, he needs to figure it out and change it, because that shit gets old. That and he can’t afford to lose his scholarship. 

He considers hooking up, but when he thinks about those girls sitting there rapt, watching him suck down a man’s cock, the thought sours. His right hand in the shower is perfectly fine. He keeps his head as blank and static as possible, but flashes of Jonny keep popping up—the way he bit his lip, how he sounded when he said Patrick’s name. After that, he gives up entirely and just adds another mile to his morning run to burn off the steam. 

The next fight he has he wins, but it’s by the skin of his teeth. It gets him on the map for The Battle anyway. If he can get someone at one of these things to notice and nominate him for entrance, he could have a real shot at the $100,000 purse. But he took a hard beating, only somehow managing a reversal on a submission, and forcing a tap with the same knee bar Jonny used on him. 

He finally forces himself back to the gym because he needs more training, that last one was too close. When he arrives, bag over his shoulder, Q shakes his head at him. Versteeg and Bollig both whoop when they see him. 

“Knew you couldn’t stay away for long,” Versteeg says. “You love our ugly mugs too much.” 

Patrick flicks him off and carefully avoids the corner of the room where Jonny diligently jumps rope, cord moving so fast it’s a blur. 

Q puts him through his paces—stretching exercises, punch combos, practicing his kicks on the bag—he only lets up when it becomes clear that Patrick’s conditioning is stellar. 

Patrick’s on the floor, leg outstretched in front of him, forehead skimming his knees when he reaches for his toes, a significant improvement over the last month. He’s waiting for Q to find him a sparring partner, when Q calls, “Jonny, get over here.” 

Patrick looks up, startled. “What?” 

“You’re chewing through partners here, kid,” Q explains. “Nobody else has fists like you. I’m not putting you up against one of my guys and watching you bust his ribs before a fight.” 

His eyes are hard. Some of the guys here, they’re doing stuff on the up and up, trying to get on the UFC circuit. But the rest of them? The money’s too fucking good down in the gutter, even if the rules are few, and you could wind up dead. It hasn’t happened in a while, Bollig explained as much to him. Rich assholes having fun with the company’s plastic don’t want to dispose of bodies any more than the next person. But there are plenty of brutal injuries. Patrick knows a guy last week dislocated a shoulder when his opponent laid him out and cracked it right out of its socket before he could even cry uncle. 

“Besides, Jonny’s got about twenty years the training on you. Might teach you some goddamn humility.” 

Patrick wonders if Q knows about the bets. About everything. His face is impassive and tells Patrick nothing. There’s not a lot in the world that Patrick allows to intimidate him, but Q is a different story. Patrick swallows and doesn’t challenge him. When he climbs into the ring, Jonny is already there, gloves on, fingers flexing. 

“Terms?” Patrick says, clearing his throat.

Jonny blinks at him and unbidden the image of his face right before he came flashes before Patrick’s eyes. “We could just spar?” 

Patrick clenches his fingers into fists and cocks a brow. 

Jonny shakes his head. “Uh, if I win, just clean my apartment or whatever.” 

Patrick pauses. “You’re not…” 

Jonny doesn’t reply and Patrick trails off. Under Q’s stern eye he holds his gloved hands out for Jonny to knock. Jonny quirks a sardonic brow at him and bumps his knuckles to Patrick’s own. Well, at least this time Jonny doesn’t have to worry about Patrick beating the shit out of him, because he likes coming to this gym, and he’s not going to fuck up Q’s favorite right in front of him. But that doesn’t mean Jonny won’t be feeling it when he leaves, Patrick’s ability to play by the rules only goes so far. 

Q yells at them to get to it, and Patrick steps back on his heel, feinting with his right, and then driving his left straight for Jonny’s ribs. Jonny turns it aside, but he doesn’t manage to block the three body shots Patrick gives him lightning quick. Jonny puts some space between them with a hard cross. It lands clean, rocking Patrick back a step, cheek exploding with pain. He shakes it off, if there’s anything he excels at it’s ignoring the things that hurt. 

Patrick’s good at reading other fighters, and he’s fought Jonny enough times now to know there are very few holes in Jonny’s ground game. It’s the most obvious direction for Jonny to take this. Patrick’s still a novice on all the wrestling shit. So he waits, staying tight, making sure not to give Jonny any openings. He’s not going down from some bitchass high school wrestling move. They pivot around each other, slow, Jonny eying him over his gloves. Patrick bares his mouthguard at him. In return, Jonny rolls his eyes and strikes out, clipping Patrick’s jaw. The same side he hit earlier. 

“Kane, keep your eyes on the whole picture,” Q calls to him. 

Patrick ignores him and scores a kick to Jonny’s thigh that makes him wince and favor the other leg. The tides have turned and Jonny’s slow to respond to the flurry of strikes Patrick follows it up with. When he knocks Patrick back, putting space between them, he looks a little winded. 

Fucking right. 

Patrick wipes the sweat off his face with his forearm, scanning over Jonny. His form is good. He’s got a good read of Patrick’s guard, but he doesn’t have the same power behind his punches, and he definitely doesn’t have Patrick’s speed. 

“Mix it up!” Q calls, still watching them. 

Patrick waits a beat. That’s his opening to go in for the takedown. But if he forces Jonny to play his way, relying on accurate powerful strikes rather than the fancy contortions, he’ll lose plain and simple. Patrick’s sure of it. 

“Why not?” Patrick baits him. “We both know you can’t stand with me.” 

“Yeah?” Jonny asks. He throws a roundhouse kick with his right, but Patrick sees it coming and ducks. Patrick recovers easily, his jiu jitsu classes have been paying off. 

He spreads his hands, sardonic, mocking to the last. “Yeah.” That’s right, walk right into it, he thinks. 

Jonny grins at him, fists up. Patrick watches his hands, waiting for the next blow, and nearly takes the back kick that Jonny pivots into right in the face. Evading it this time sets him off balance. He struggles to get his feet under him. 

“Fuck you,” Jonny says. He launches himself into the air, leg coming up. Patrick’s horribly out of position and then all he knows is black. 

*

When he comes to, he’s flat on his back, Q, Steeger, and Bollig and a bunch of others bent over him in the ring. “How many fingers?” Steeger asks, not even bothering to hold a hand up. 

“Ugh, none, get out of my face,” Patrick says, swatting at him. His head aches, everything aches. He must’ve ate mat hard. He tries to raise his head and then gives up. It aches. “What happened?” 

“Jonny tornadoed you,” Steeger says, offering him a hand. Patrick lets himself be pulled to his feet. 

“A full 360 degree rotation,” Bollig adds. 

Q snorts. Patrick follows his gaze and finds Jonny leaning at the edge of the ring, his arms crossed. 

“You can’t kickbox for shit, kid,” Q says, smacking him in the side. “Next time you’re in, you’re gonna be practicing on Bob the whole time and then you’re gonna let Steeger take runs at you until you can block a simple kick without falling over.” 

Patrick groans and rubs at his head. “You’re the boss,” he manages, trying to keep the room from spinning around him. 

Q snorts again and he and Jonny both climb down from the ring. He looks like he’s saying something to Jonny, but Patrick can’t hear it.The crowd of people dissipates as soon as they see Patrick’s up and talking. Bollig wraps an arm around his neck, shaking him a little. The motion is nauseating. “Don’t feel too bad, that was no simple kick.”

Patrick ignores him and gingerly gets down from the ring. Steeger vaults over the ropes because he’s an asshole show off, but Bollig climbs down after Patrick. They’re both pretending he isn’t following so closely behind to make sure that Patrick doesn’t fall over. “How long was I out?”

“30 seconds, tops?” Bollig says, looking at Steeger, who nods. “Everybody loves your pretty face, Peekaboo. You went down and we all came running.” 

Patrick’s too out of it to do more than bat at him half-heartedly. Curse his fucking mouth. He doesn't understand why Jonny makes him lose control like this over and over. He could've left it at sparring, now he's got a date to clean Jonny's apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is so long in the making that Open Secret Studios where the party happens isn't even open anymore!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He should’ve forfeited the bet. What the hell was he thinking? He can’t get himself out of Jonny’s place fast enough._

Q insists that he go to a doctor to get checked out. Patrick’s scholarship pays for university health services, and when Q threatens to bar him from the gym until he returns with a doctor’s note, he really has no excuse to say no.

Andrew meets him afterwards. “So, is your psycho head going to be okay?” 

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says as they walk down 59th street. He rubs at his arm. The doctor had managed to waylay him to get a bunch of shots, claiming he already had Patrick there so they might as well, and now his left shoulder aches at the injection site. 

Andrew nods at him, clearly weighing whether or not to believe him. He must decide Patrick doesn’t look too bad for being kicked in the head. “Good, because I wanna copy your notes.” 

“You could just go to class?” Patrick suggests. 

" _You_ don’t go to class!” 

Patrick laughs. “Ah, but I’m not failing, am I?” 

“Quiet,” Andrew says, “C’mon, I’ll buy you lunch, head case.” 

Patrick looks at him for a long moment. “You’re still not getting my notes.” 

“What? Come on now!” 

He goes for a run that night, even though he probably shouldn’t. His head pounds, pulse beating out a heavy staccato rhythm against his temples, but he doesn’t turn back. He’s getting weary of this whole thing with Jonny. Patrick’s always been good at everything he tried, the brightest kid in their shitty little school, always three steps ahead of his sisters and cousins. He picked stuff up easily, whether it was stick handling back when he was still playing hockey, or riding a bike, or playing poker with the older kids. He’s not used to being second best and he can’t figure out why he can’t ever seem to beat him. Patrick's good. He knows he is. He's picking this shit up faster than anybody else Q has ever seen. He's got the speed and the hands, and no matter what Q says, he _can_ block a kick. But he loses nearly every time, letting Jonny out-maneuver him. He can't seem to think around him. 

He stops to rest at Promontory Point, looking out over the water. The surf is quiet at this time of night, a barely audible lap of the waves over the traffic on Lakeshore Drive. He feels a sudden sense of desolation he doesn’t understand. He’d been getting the sense that Jonny was into him after that thing at Open Secret. A lot of people are into him. He knows it’s the rough edges and the cockiness, Patrick’s learned to count on it. But the way he'd suggested cleaning his apartment when he could’ve had Patrick on his knees again? Well, it’s probably safe to assume Jonny’s _not_ into him. He’s not even sure why the thought bothers him. Why should it matter, he asks himself. He’s just a smug jackass at Patrick’s boxing gym. 

But Patrick can only prevaricate to himself so much. He knows the ugly truth that lives within him, he just doesn’t like facing it. If Jonny wanted him it wouldn’t matter so much that Patrick wasn’t good enough to beat him. Patrick would always have something over him, something he would never get without an actual fight. And now Patrick’s starting to think he’s on the losing side of that arrangement anyhow. But the way Jonny had looked at him when he was on his knees for him, like he’d wanted to own Patrick. Patrick had felt power in that, even with a dick in his mouth. There had been utility in that hot desire. Or so Patrick had thought. It makes him shiver and wonder again what the fuck is wrong with him. 

He doesn’t like dick. He has never liked dick. And he certainly doesn’t like Jonny’s dick. 

*

He has to miss his fight the next night. He can’t afford to take another hit to the head. He'd go anyway, because money is money, but he doesn't want to know what Q would do if he found out. Bollig goes in his place and cleans up. Patrick laid a couple of hundreds on him, so it’s not a complete loss, but he’s still irrationally angry about it. 

“Fuckin’ A, man, you’re such a downer right now,” Sharpy says after Patrick snaps at him for the third time in a study session at the place he shares Burr. 

Patrick rubs at his face. “Sorry.” He’s sitting in the middle of a pile of papers on Sharpy’s floor, back against the couch, trying to get things together for a calc exam. He shifts some stuff around, looking for a specific problem set. It’s nowhere to be found. He thunks his head back on the couch with a defeated groan, and immediately regrets it when his temples start throbbing. 

Sharpy eyes him for a long moment and then gets to his feet, dumping the Espinosa book he was reading on the floor. “Okay, enough of this shit.” 

He disappears into Burr’s room and comes back with a sandwich baggy full of weed and rolling papers. He starts sloppily rolling together a joint right on the cover of the Espinosa book. After watching him fumble with it for several moments, Patrick shakes his head and knocks Sharpy’s hands aside. He unwraps it, packs the marijuana tighter together, and curls together a filter out of the edge of a printed study guide before wrapping it all up again. He licks the paper flat to stick, and then hands the finished joint to Sharpy. 

“Done that a lot?” Sharpy asks, bemused. He goes to light up with a Zippo nearly out of butane, flicking the spark wheel uselessly. Patrick rolls his eyes and pulls his own lighter out of his pocket and easily ignites a flame. Sharpy inhales deeply on the joint as soon as it’s lit. 

“Didn’t realize you smoked,” Sharpy says, nodding at the lighter. His voice is scratchy from taking too deep a hit and after a moment he starts coughing. 

Patrick stuffs the cheap bic lighter back into his pocket. “I don’t.” 

Sharpy eyes him. “I don’t even want to know, do I?” he says and then passes the joint over. 

Patrick laughs. From the look on his face, Sharpy is imagining some sordid history of arson, but Patrick has the lighter because there are always uses for that shit, not because he’s going to torch somebody’s house. He pinches the joint in his fingers and brings it to his mouth to inhale. It’s good stuff, better than the shit his cousin dealt before getting locked up at Altona. Burr knows what he’s doing, even if Sharpy doesn’t. Another hit and he allows himself to relax back into the couch. 

“Sorry for being an asshole,” he says after a moment. 

Sharpy takes the joint back from him, arranging his legs tailor fashion. After a comfortable silence, trading the joint back and forth, Sharpy suddenly asks. “Are your fights legal?” 

Patrick looks at him and the earnest expression on his face and can’t help cracking up. “Of course not.” 

“Why do you do it, man?”

Patrick shrugs. “I need the money,” he says, his snickers finally dying down. Everything feels warm and fuzzy and comfortable. Yeah, this is definitely some good shit. 

“What about your parents?” Sharpy asks. 

“What about them? They can barely pay the electricity bill every month.” Patrick shrugs. “I’m not even supposed to be here.” 

Sharpy passes the joint back after taking another puff. “What do you mean?” 

“People like me don’t get to go to college,’ he says, matter of fact, and maybe it’s from smoking up, but for once it’s not so hard to say. The joint is done, embers straight up to the filter. He stubs out the burning end and doesn’t meet Sharpy’s eyes. He doesn’t want to see pity or that other look, where people are so amazed at what he’s accomplished, like he’s some kind of paragon of saintly poverty rising above his humble broke-ass origins. 

“Wow, shit,” Sharpy replies, collapsing back into the couch. Patrick finally looks at him and Sharpy shrugs. “I dunno, man, what am I supposed to say?” 

Patrick starts laughing again. “I dunno either.” He starts shuffling stuff around, cleaning up. Clutter always bothers him when he’s high. All of the things that are out of order always come straight into focus. 

“Can I come?” Sharpy asks. 

Patrick pauses in reorganizing his notes. “What, to one of my bouts?” 

“Yeah, do you win?” 

“Mostly,” he says. 

Sharpy shakes his head. “Is there anything you’re not good at?” 

Patrick sends him a wicked grin, because modesty is for losers, before saying, “I can’t play an instrument for shit?”

Sharpy grins. “Fuck, don’t I know! Look at your music taste. Eminem? Club hits? Shit, son, I’m embarrassed I know you sometimes.” 

Patrick dead arms him. 

*

A few days later Patrick finally goes to pay up what he owes and clean Jonny’s apartment as promised. He has no idea what to expect. He wouldn’t put it past Jonny to have deliberately left the place a sty. When he gets there Jonny hands him a mop and a bucket, and tells him “I trust you know what to do?” before disappearing into his bedroom. 

The place doesn’t look any different than it did the last time Patrick was here. He determinedly avoids looking at the open-plan kitchen and the stretch of tiles he’d kneeled down on. 

Jonny could stand to clean his windows more and he definitely needs to dust in the hard to reach areas, but he hadn't deliberately made a mess of his apartment in anticipation of Patrick coming over. If there situations were reversed, Patrick definitely would've. Nevertheless, there's still plenty to do. The hardwood floors haven’t been washed in a long time and the appliances in the kitchen are grimy. Patrick feels matronly even noticing such a thing, but he grew up in a clean home. Even when his mom couldn't get out of bed, somebody always made sure everything was in its place. Cleanliness was next to godliness, he thinks with an ironic sigh. He gets to work with a grumble, pulling on the yellow dish gloves Jonny left in the mop bucket. Jonny probably only expected a light surface clean, but Patrick is such a completist that two hours later he finds himself on his knees scrubbing at the years old dust lining the crevices of the wainscoting. Once he gets started it just seems easier to keep going. 

It’s weird, being immersed in somebody’s stuff. He learns that Jonny has a huge collection of 80s and 90s action films. They’re sitting right next to a bunch of pretentious Criterion classics in French - The Grand Illusion, The Wages of Fear, Alphaville, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Mon Oncle - Patrick hasn’t even heard of some of them. He wouldn’t have figured Jonny for a francophile, but now that he knows, he’s not surprised. There are more books and magazines in French scattered around. It would figure that that overachiever would go and try to learn it. 

When he gets to the kitchen, it’s no surprise to find Jonny’s a totally health conscious freak. He even has a wheatgrass plant in the window box. His one concession to junk food seems to be a variety of sugary cereals lined up in a cupboard above the fridge.

There’s a stack of papers with the Northwestern logo sitting on the kitchen counter along with a pile of bills. He notes a hefty speeding ticket and is inordinately pleased. When he straightens the papers up, he finds a clean STD panel. Patrick realizes that’s definitely something he should’ve thought about earlier. Well, at least now he knows choking on Jonny’s jizz isn’t going to give him anything. 

Jonny finds Patrick a half hour later in the bathroom scrubbing the tub, Jonny’s insane collection of hair and skin products clustered out of the way on top of the toilet tank. “Are you...joking?” he asks, he’s chewing a piece of gum and it’s visible in his open-mouthed shock. 

Patrick glares at him. “Sorry, I’m not a slob?” 

Jonny ignores the weak barb entirely. “Well move, eh? I need to piss.” 

Patrick shifts over and Jonny pulls down his zipper. Patrick abruptly looks away. 

“Classy,” Patrick says at the sound of the stream hitting the war. 

Jonny quirks an incredulous eyebrow at him and snorts. “Yeah, that’s what I’m really worried about, being classy for you.” 

He finishes up and tucks himself back in before carefully washing his hands. Patrick clears his throat and gets back to scrubbing the tub, wondering how the fuck is this his life? Jonny turns off the tap and then leans back against the sink, watching him. Patrick keeps his eyes down, scrubbing harder. 

“Okay, stop,” Jonny says after a tense drawn-out moment. 

“What?” Patrick looks up. “Not up to your exacting standards?” he says, injecting as much venom into the sentence as he possibly can. 

Jonny rolls his eyes heavenward and then heaves out a sigh. “No, just, stop—all of it. Stop the cleaning.” 

Patrick stares at him. 

“You’ve done a lovely job,” Jonny says, herding him out of the bathroom. Patrick can’t believe this is happening—that Jonny is ludicrously attempting to assure him about his cleaning skills, while kicking him out of his apartment. 

“Man, are you like...embarrassed by this?” Patrick asks as Jonny’s shoves him out of the apartment without answering. “What the fuck?” he says to closed door, blinking. Jonny is so—his brain goes to reach for an insult, but this time all it comes back with is ‘strange.’

*

The insistent ringing of his phone wakes him at 4 AM. He doesn’t fucking care. His polimetric modeling kept him up much later than he expected and these last couple of days have kicked his ass. Whoever it is can call another time. The ringing stops and then starts up again almost immediately. His roommate flings his water bottle across the room at him. 

“Fuckin' A, Kane.” his roommate says, “Deal with it, will you?” 

Patrick groans when he sees the number. His mother. It’s an hour ahead in Buffalo, so either it’s an emergency—somebody got themselves arrested or dead—or she’s drunk. He drags himself from his nice warm bed and snags his room key. 

"Patrick?" she asks when he picks up.

"Yeah, mom?" he says with a sigh, leaning against the door.

"I'm sorry to call you like this," she says weakly. Her voice is thick, but it sounds like tears, not the slur of alcohol. 

He sighs, rubbing at his tired eyes. “It’s alright.” He pauses. “Is everybody okay?” 

There’s a silence at the other end of the line. “Mom?” he asks.

“No, no, I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have called,” she says. “We’re so proud of you, you know that?” 

“Mom” Patrick repeats firmly. “What happened?” 

His mother takes a deep breath. “It’s just—it’s just your grandfather, he had a stroke and—and we don’t know how to pay—” she stops, choked off by tears. Patrick’s stomach sinks. 

There’s some rattling and shifting at the other end of the line and then his father comes on, “Buzz, you need to come home.” 

Patrick’s eyes burn. He digs his fingers into the wall. “I can’t.” There’s no way he’ll be able to keep his scholarship if he doesn’t maintain his GPA and he’s been slipping already. This is his ticket out. This is his one chance to get away from that life.

“Buzz,” his father says, and it’s just a silly childhood nickname, but the way he says it sounds dangerous. 

“No,” Patrick replies, voice going equally hard. “I _can’t_.”

His father starts yelling after that, Patrick leans back against the wall, staring at the ceiling while his father shouts. It hurts to listen to it. He hears his mother telling his dad to stop it, weak and watery, over and over. “Can you—can you give the phone to mom,” he says, after his father pauses to take a breath. 

His father makes a disgusted noise, but he must hand the phone over because after a protracted pause, his mother is back on the line. “What is it, Pat?” she says, sounding even more tremulous. 

Patrick swallows. “I can send you some money. Something so you can help pay Grandpa’s bills.” 

“Oh, Pat, won’t you come home?” she replies, starting to sob. 

“Mom,” he says, voice breaking. A door slams down the hall and Patrick straightens up, brushing at his eyes. He clears his throat. “I’ll wire you guys some money tomorrow morning, okay?” 

His mother makes a plaintive noise. “Patrick, that isn’t—” 

“I love you, mom,” Patrick interupts. “Say hi to the girls for me and don’t worry about Grandpa’s bills. I’ve got it.” 

He hangs up before she can reply, chest feeling so heavy and yet empty at the same time. Where has his heart gone? All he can do is remind himself that he swore he wouldn’t go back. 

*

He destroys in his next two fights. At the end of the second, in the middle of the fourth round, the guy calling it has to pull Patrick off to get him to stop pounding on his opponent. 

“Kid, you’re gonna kill him,” he shouts into Patrick’s ear, yanking hard around his middle. “You’re gonna kill him.” 

For a moment he doesn’t care. All he feels is the continuous jangling impotence churning into the now ever-present fury. The voice of his father ordering him home and the crushing guilt that he didn’t even hesitate before saying no. Patrick scrambles off the poor schmuck, flexing aching fingers. 

“Jesus Christ,” the ref shouts, but Patrick’s already blowing by him. He doesn’t realize until he’s made it back to the dingy little place they’re calling a locker room that there are tears running down his cheeks. He takes a deep breath and gets himself together. 

They hand him his winnings in cash while he’s doctoring his split knuckles. “See you at The Battle,” one of them says. He's in a dark suit, wearing sunglasses at night like a tool, and it takes everything Patrick has not to flinch when he pats Patrick’s shoulder like a congenial father. Patrick wires it to his mother along with the last of the money he’s saved up as soon as the Western Union on South Clark opens the next morning. 

*

“What are you doing tonight?” Sharpy asks at breakfast in the dining hall. 

Patrick pauses in the middle of his second helping of eggs. Andrew and Burr look up from their own meals. “Uh,” he says, awkwardly, letting it hang there. There’s a thing for The Battle. It’s gonna be miserable, most of the attendees are sure to be be hopped-up wealthy toolboxes, but even so, he’s not sure it would be a good idea to bring the guys. 

Andrew stares at him, his eyebrows raised. “Well, it’s gotta be something good.” 

Patrick raises a hand. “I gotta party tonight—it’s you know…” he trails off and shrugs.

“Oh, for your underground illegal fight ring thing,” Sharpy says, really loudly. 

Patrick throws his napkin at him, eyes darting around the table. Nobody else seems to have heard, but still Sharpy shouldn’t go shouting that shit. “Fuck off, Sharpy.” 

“Well, are you gonna invite us?” Burr asks, because he’s a mannerless asshole. 

Patrick narrows his eyes at him and then leans forward, gesturing them all in close. “Listen, if you come tonight, there are rules. Like, this place ain’t no joke, and I don’t need one of you ending up bitch boy to some organized crime heavyweight.” 

“Oh come on,” Andrew replies with a laugh. “It can’t be _that_ bad.” 

Patrick stares back at him, expression unchanged. Sharpy leans back in his chair and looks at Patrick speculatively. “You’re serious.” 

“Yeah, I’m totally serious,” Patrick replies. “If you still wanna come, it’s up to you.” 

Sharpy’s face splits into a grin that instantly makes Patrick want to rescind the offer. “We’ll make sure this mutt doesn’t run us into trouble,” he says, ruffling Andrew’s hair. 

When they get there that night, Patrick’s glad to have them. He likes the other guys at the gym, and some of the other people he’s met on the circuit, but these guys are his friends and they don’t belong here just as much as Patrick doesn’t. Sharpy punches him in the side when they arrive and he sees the way everybody else is dressed. 

“Jesus christ, asshole, you didn’t tell us there was a dress code!” 

Patrick looks over him and then glances around the dance floor of the club. Everybody’s in fancy expensive designer-wear except for the four of them. Bollig’s been getting on him to buy a suit with some of his winnings again, but Patrick wasn’t going to waste it on that shit just to _fit in_. 

“Oops,” he replies unrepentantly. 

Sharpy grumbles, but Burr and Andrew are both looking around fascinated. It’s fancy, with cocktail waitresses dressed like cigarette girls and bartenders in suspenders and bowlers. He feels like he's stepped right into a speakeasy filled with beautiful wealthy, shameless people. 

“I think I’m in heaven,” Burr say, watching two girls in tiny dresses make out, splitting a bottle of Cristal between them, the champagne spilling out of their mouths. 

Patrick laughs, albeit bitterly. “I’m getting a drink.” 

He’s waiting for his beer when Jonny steps up to the bar beside him and orders two cocktails. He’s got his back turned to Patrick and doesn’t acknowledge him. There’s another guy with him. He’s handsome in a hollywood way, and he’s leaning into Jonny’s space, rapt upon his every word. Jonny’s ducking in close like he’s equally interested. 

Patrick doesn’t even know what comes over him, or why he suddenly feels the need to provoke Jonny, but as soon he’s paid his tab, he finds himself sidling over and clapping the guy on the shoulder. 

“Hey, just thought I should give you some friendly advice,” he says to the guy who blinks at him, taken aback. He nods his head at Jonny who’s staring at him with furrowed brows, wondering what Patrick's up to. “He’s got the herp. He’s given it to a few of my friends.” 

“For real?” the guy says aghast as Jonny's own expression transforms into horror. The guy turns to him, heedless of the snickers that Patrick's already struggling to stifle, to say, “Jesus christ, it’s 2016, learn to use a dental dam.” 

He shrugs past Patrick and Jonny both, nearly upsetting the beer in his hand. 

“Yeah, Jonny, it’s 2016,” he says, sing-song, finally allowing the laughter to flow free at Jonny’s clenched fists. There are white lines of restrained fury around his mouth. “Seriously though, who _actually_ uses a dental dam? Like 70% of the planet has herpes! I think I did you a solid, man.” 

Jonny lets out a breath and turns back to the bar and knocks back both cocktails the bartender left waiting for him. He doesn’t say anything as he pushes by Patrick, hitting his shoulder as he passes. 

“That was ice cold!” Andrew says from over his shoulder, staring at him amazed. He must have come over while Patrick was waiting for his beer. “What’d that guy do to you?”

Patrick shrugs and grins back, pointing finger guns at him, and then he meets Sharpy’s eyes. He watching Patrick intently, face full of judgement. Patrick drops his gaze and clears his throat, “He’s just a tool.” 

“Yeah, okay, killer,” Andrew says. “Man, I am never getting on your bad side.” 

Patrick laughs at him, but it's uneasy, still trying to gauge Sharpy's reaction. He takes a long swallow of his beer. “Ah, I'm not that bad.” 

Sharpy rolls his eyes at him. “Buy me a beer, Kaner,” he says, using the nickname they coined for him on the ultimate team. “I deserve it for putting up with your punkass.” 

Patrick spreads his hands, faux innocent. “Oh come on, that was nothing.” 

“Sure,” Sharpy says darkly, but the nudge he gives Patrick is fond. Relief spreads through him, unknotting the ball in his chest that had drawn tight at the look on Sharpy's face. He doesn't want to disappoint Sharpy. He doesn't want to to disappoint anyone, but he seems to have gotten a skill for it. 

 

*

Patrick’s sparring by himself a few nights later when Jonny drops in on the gym. The last couple of times they’ve crossed paths like this, Jonny’s always found a way to occupy himself elsewhere, which has been annoying, because Patrick wants a rematch after that tornado kick. He’s been improving steadily, and now with the invitation to The Battle, he’s feeling pretty good about his chances. Jonny doesn’t avoid him this time though. He pauses for a moment, sizing him up as he pulls on his gloves. Patrick holds back a smile. No, he has no intention of avoiding Patrick at all. Oh, he pissed him off pretty good with that cockblock at the party. 

“Rematch?” he asks, stilling the bag he was working. 

Jonny shoots him a dark look, winding the velcro in place around his wrists. “What’s it to be this time?” 

Patrick grins. He’s been thinking about this one, an appropriate punishment in the wake of that fucking demeaning courtyard blowjob. “If I win, I get to come on your face.” 

Jonny snorts. “Predictable.” 

Patrick shrugs loosely. He swings himself up into the ring and then looks back at Jonny over his shoulder. “You coming?” 

Jonny pauses, as inscrutable as ever. He scrubs his hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah I’m coming.” 

It starts off easy, almost teasing, the kind of slow trade off of punches he’d do with Bollig or Steeger. It’s weird to realize he’s familiar with Jonny now and that Jonny’s familiar with him. Reading other fighters is like poker. They have tells. Jonny’s face is as smooth as glass, he’s better at masking his moves than anybody else Patrick’s gone up against. But he gives himself away in the breathing—the big inhale before he throws a powerful move. Patrick hears that indrawn breath and goes for a big right hand punch before Jonny can land anything on him. It forces Jonny to duck to avoid it and when he shoots under Patrick’s guard for the obvious double-leg takedown, Patrick is ready for it, widening his stance in a sprawl. The part of him that’s street and fights bare knuckles and broken glass rebels every time he does something like this. It’s taken a lot for him to embrace the effectiveness of it rather than seeing it as straight up vulnerable. 

It works though, stopping Jonny in his tracks, forcing him to adjust. He puts space between them fluidly, recovering quick. But not quick enough, because Patrick sees it. His moment, that little window where Jonny’s guard has dropped, leaving his jaw unprotected. And Jonny should really know better. After all, whatever else may be true, Jonny can’t outbox him. Patrick slams him with an uppercut that catches him hard. Surprised, Jonny’s knocked back. Pressing the advantage, Patrick follows him, dragging him down to the mats. Jonny’s already pushing up with one arm when Patrick knees him with all his might in the ribs. He’s in a terrible position, front completely opened up to Patrick, all out of position to get Patrick in any kind of defensive hold. Jonny cries out with the second strike to the same place, but he doesn’t crack until the third, slapping the mat with his palm. 

Patrick whoops, the thrill of victory coursing through him. He does summon up the wherewithal to politely give Jonny space. Fuck that feels good. Better than the first time he beat Jonny. He couldn’t even enjoy it that time. He’d been so angry. This time though, he bested him, playing the game Jonny’s way. 

Jonny lets out a sigh, rolling flat on his back, a hand over his abused side. He groans, but it sounds more annoyed than pained. Patrick watches bemused as he keeps his eyes trained at the ceiling, before taking a deep breath and gingerly pushing himself up into a sitting position. 

“Good fight,” Patrick says with a grin. 

Jonny looks over at him with a strange expression. “Why didn’t you go for the easy punch?” he asks after a protracted pause, wiping sweat off his face. 

Patrick sucks in a breath. He hadn’t done it on purpose. He hadn’t even thought about it really. He could’ve KO’d him with another hit to the jaw when he was down on the ground, rather than going for the knee jab. He could’ve pulverized Jonny’s face. 

He drops his eyes from Jonny’s even-eyed gaze. 

“Wanted you to be pretty when I came all over your face,” Patrick tells him at last, clearing his throat. “I’ll call you,” Patrick says, getting down from the ring. He looks back over his shoulder at Jonny who’s getting up to his feet, back turned to Patrick. “When I’m ready for it.” 

Jonny turns his head, presenting Patrick with his profile. He doesn’t respond and Patrick snorts and scoops up his gym bag, heading for the door. 

He dreams about it that night—wacking off on Jonny’s face. Jonny lies flat below him, with Patrick kneeling over his chest, jerking it slow and leisurely while Jonny just watches him, dark eyes strangely soft. When he comes, painting up Jonny’s face, his cheeks are all pink, and he gasps, hands coming up to clutch at Patrick’s thighs like being marked with Patrick’s jizz gets him hot. 

He startles awake, hot and sweaty in his sheets, breathing hard. He looks down his body at his cock and thumps his head back on the pillow. It takes a long time for him to fall asleep after that and when he finally does, it’s fitful and filled with strange anxious dreams. 

Eventually after a week with it ever at the back of his mind, he decides he’s just gotta do it and get it out of the way, so he’ll stop dwelling on it so hard. It’s inexplicable how much it lingers with him. He’s got a late class that evening, so when it’s over he sucks it up and catches the bus that’ll take him to Jonny’s neighborhood. He doesn’t even text him that he’s coming, something that doesn’t occur to him as a possible problem until he’s already at Jonny’s door, ringing his buzzer. 

Jonny answers though, the speaker crackling to life with a gruff, “Who is it?” 

Patrick has to clear his throat before the words will come out. “It’s Patrick. Time to pay up.” 

There’s a long pause. For a second Patrick wonders if Jonny’s just going to leave him out here, but then the door buzzes. Patrick blows out a breath and pulls it open. He takes Jonny’s stairs at a jog and when he reaches his floor, he finds Jonny standing in the doorway, arms crossed, and eyebrow raised. 

“Yo,” Patrick says in greeting, flashing him a grin. The last thing he wants Jonny to know is how weird this whole thing makes him feel. Jonny steps back from the door and Patrick sees Brent and Duncan sitting inside, a game on Jonny’s TV. Well, that was unanticipated. He wonders what Jonny’s going to do about that, just walk Patrick past them back into his bedroom? 

“Okay, you two freeloaders, it’s time to get lost,” Jonny tells them. 

“Huh?” Duncs says with his eyes still on the screen and his hand dug down into a bag of tortilla chips. Patrick remains unnoticed.

“Are you kidding? It’s only the second period,” Brent protests. 

“Out,” Jonny tells them gesturing towards the door, and that’s when Brent and Duncan both spot him. 

“What? Oh,” Brent says, eyes wide. After a moment, he clearly comes to some incredibly wrong conclusion, because he says, “Oh!” again in a very different tone of voice. Patrick fights hard against a blush and a grimace. 

Duncan, ignoring them all, whoops as Winnipeg scores on Chicago. Brent rolls his eyes and practically muscles him up from the sofa. “Okay, Buddy, we’re not welcome here, let’s go catch the game at a bar,” he says, shooting Patrick an apologetic smile. 

“What?” Duncan protests again, batting at Brent. 

“C'mon!” Brent replies, shoving at him, his eyes darting meaningfully over to Patrick. Duncan finally acknowledges him, his lips quirking when he sees him. Great, now they both think he's here to hook up. 

“Listen, if I’m getting kicked out, I’m taking these with me,” Duncan says darkly and bends down and swipes the bag of tortilla chips up. After a moment he reaches out and grabs the salsa too. He salutes Patrick with it. “So nice to see you, kid.” 

“Right,” Patrick replies. 

Brent swings on his jacket and shoves Duncan out the front door. 

“They think I’m here for some kind of hook up…” Patrick says when they leave. 

Jonny stares at him, tongue running over his teeth. “Whose fault is that?” he says. Yeah okay, Patrick could’ve called. Should have called, he’s thinking now. Jonny turns off the TV and then sits down on the couch. 

“Uh…” Patrick starts and then stops, unsure how to proceed. 

“Well?” Jonny asks, gesturing at the space in front of him. 

“You want to do this right here?” Patrick asks, incredulously. 

“You got somewhere better in mind? Buckingham fountain? Navy Pier? Right on the ferris wheel maybe? Something to really up the romance?” 

“Fuck off,” Patrick tells him. He sets his bag down by the door and undoes his belt and unzips his fly as he walks to stand in front of Jonny. Jonny looks up at him, a bored expression on his face as Patrick slowly fists himself. He stiffens up to hardness under Jonny’s stupid detached gaze, but it feels all wrong, embarrassment and unease running down his spine. Jonny’s expression doesn’t change as he starts to stroke. He’s still affecting cool disinterest, but his eyes follow Patrick’s hand on his dick. Patrick makes a bit of a show of it, fisting himself nice and slow, thumb dragging precome around the head. Jonny looks up and catches Patrick watching him and shifts his gaze to the wall over Patrick’s shoulder, exhaling out through his nose. 

Show or not, this is not exactly hot. Once again he’s starting to feel like he’s the one who lost this fight rather than Jonny, especially with the awkward slapping sound of his palm against his cock in the quiet apartment. He looks at Jonny’s clock on the wall and watches the minute hand progress with a sense of trepidation. He’s nowhere near coming. He’s just standing in front of Jonny with his dick out like a fool. He closes his eyes and thinks of a chick he banged a few weeks ago who let him fuck her in the ass, the way she’d let out these soft little whimpers and fingered herself while he did it. That had been hot. When she slid her fingers into her pussy, he would swear he felt them against his cock as he pushed inside. His arm speeds up. He’s being a little rough on himself, but what’s he gonna do? Ask Jonny for lube? Ugh. And then the awkwardness is back again and he’s thinking about the way he’s standing in Jonny’s living room jerking his dick. 

He makes a noise of discontent, eyes popping back open. 

“Don’t have it in you, eh?” Jonny says, situating himself into another position, the smirk immediately evident in his voice. 

“Fuck. Off,” Patrick grits out, ducking his head and tightening his hand around his cock. 

Jonny lets out a harsh laugh. “Weak effort, Kane.” 

A jolt goes through him, body temperature ratcheting up. He hates it—the way Jonny so easily slides under his skin and starts clawing at his psyche. He steps in close, tilting Jonny’s head up ungently. Jonny lets out a grunt, but he doesn’t resist. His expression is as unimpressed as Patrick has ever seen it, dark eyes staring up at him like Patrick isn’t seconds away from smearing jizz all over his face. 

Patrick closes his eyes again, desperately trying to picture that girl lying on her belly, hand working under her as Patrick fucked her, but all he sees is Jonny’s face. Jonny looking up at him as he fucks him, that same unimpressed expression giving way to something else. He pictures discomfort—Jonny struggling to take his dick—but it slides away from him, until he’s picturing that same face Jonny had when Patrick blew him, cheeks flushed and expression blissed out while he told Patrick how his mouth felt on his cock. He hears it then, in his head, Jonny murmuring to him how fucking good he feels with Patrick’s dick in him, how Patrick’s fucking him just right. Patrick can’t help the whine in the back of his throat. What the hell is happening to him? Think of the girl, he sternly reminds himself, but he can’t summon the image forward. 

He shivers, tries to conjure a blank canvas in his mind, but it’s no use. All he sees is his dick sliding into Jonny’s ass. He opens his eyes, expecting Jonny’s judgmental bullshit to be a suitable dick softener, but Jonny’s staring up at him, face still and unknowable, and Patrick wants to feed his cock past those lips. He wants to give it to him all slow and sweet, and before he knows what’s hit him, he’s coming. He bites his lip savagely against a moan, fingernails digging into the nape of Jonny’s neck as he drags him closer. 

Jonny’s placid as the first shot of come paints up his cheek, a pearly line sliding dangerously close to his eye. He doesn’t blink as Patrick works his dick through his orgasm, come spurting out over his cheeks and chin, one thick glob catching his lower lip. Patrick shudders at the sight of it. How is it that his complete and utter submission feels like defiance? 

He lets go of his neck and stumbles backward, breathing hard. Jonny makes a dismissive noise in the back of his throat and wipes at his cheeks with the tips of his fingers. “Show yourself out,” he says and gets up to go to the bathroom, all without even looking at Patrick. In that moment, he loathes Jonny. 

Fuck. He should’ve…

He should’ve forfeited the bet. What the hell was he thinking? He can’t get himself out of Jonny’s place fast enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Patrick can’t believe it. He stumbles out of the ring, dazed and hurting._
> 
> _“Kane,” somebody says. There’s a guy in front of him, face swimming in triplicate. Jonny, Patrick realizes. Patrick shakes his head, trying to make the images unify into one. No luck._
> 
> _“Patrick,” all three of him repeat, concerned._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter with brand new content, as in written after July of 2015. Thanks go to joyfulseeker, cooliofoolios, and sorrylatenew for talking through this with me.

It stays with him. He’s so off-balance he nearly gets murdered his next fight. 

Patrick hadn’t seen his opponent around before, but he’s covered in blurry poorly-inked tattoos and has a face full of metal. He’s a similar weight, but he’s taller, and today, Patrick’s lower center of gravity isn’t helping him. The guy’s using his longer reach to pummel Patrick and keep clear of Patrick’s own return volleys. He’s taking too many shots to the body, and the reflexes that he relies so heavily upon aren’t serving him well. It's like he’s screaming at his body to make the necessary moves and it’s just not cooperating, getting slower with each new layer of punishment laid upon him. 

He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him and it makes him furious, pulse beating loud in his head, as he barely gets his arms up in time to block a right-cross. The crowd jeers at him, calling him Tinker Bell. People have been calling him some variation upon that theme his whole life. He doesn’t know why it’s getting to him tonight, throwing him off his game. What the fuck do they know about him? Nothing, he shouldn’t even waste thought upon it. 

If this was a sanctioned fight, Patrick would lose by decision. But it isn’t. It’s either knock out or tap out here, and Patrick’s not going to tap. Never let it be said he went down easy. This guy will have to hit him until he can’t get back up if he wants the win. 

Patrick gets floored by a leg sweep and only just manages to roll out of the way of a vicious kick to the ribs. Every part of him is screaming in agony and something’s definitely not entirely right with his side. But Patrick doesn’t tap. Aside from sparring in the gym, he hasn’t done it for anybody but Jonny, and he sure as fuck isn’t about to start now. He’s fading though, gassed up, muscles burning with lactic acid and fatigue. 

He has to avoid another swinging kick to the face, and as he’s trying to recover, he notices Jonny standing silent in the shouting crowd, arms crossed over his chest, face expressionless. He lifts his chin, that same imperious tilt he’d used as he let Patrick come all over him. But this time it communicates something very different. Get up, Patrick thinks. Get. Up. As Jonny’s eyes burn into him, he finds it within himself to roll another time, and this time gets clear enough to get back up to his feet. The guy is coming at him full bore and Patrick reacts almost without thinking. When he throws the punch, it’s like chambering the round before firing. Everything clicks into place and suddenly the guy’s dropping like a glass-jawed featherweight. 

Patrick can’t believe it. He stumbles out of the ring, dazed and hurting. 

“Kane,” somebody says. There’s a guy in front of him, face swimming in triplicate. Jonny, Patrick realizes. Patrick shakes his head, trying to make the images unify into one. No luck. 

“Patrick,” all three of him repeat, concerned. 

Patrick runs his tongue along his teeth and has the thought that at least none of them are loose before everything flickers out of focus. 

He has a brief sense of being in a car, driving fast. He lolls his head over and finds Jonny behind the wheel. They can’t go to the university health center—he’ll lose his scholarship and he’s on U-SHIP, no way they won’t find out if he goes to the emergency room. He can’t lose his scholarship. He won’t go back to Buffalo. He won’t. 

Jonny looks over and sees he’s awake when Patrick groans and tries to straighten from his slump. 

“You can’t take me to the hospital,” he slurs, trying to inject urgency into it.

“Patrick…” Jonny says, looking torn and worried. 

“No hospital,” he repeats before Jonny flickers out again. 

*

He wakes up, disoriented, feeling like he was thrown into a burlap bag and beaten with a stick. When he draws in too large a breath, his sides ache. It takes him a long moment to figure out that he’s lying on Sharpy and Burr’s couch, not waking up in some random place he doesn’t know. There’s clattering around coming from the kitchen and the persistent whir of the ceiling fan overhead. He isn’t sure how he got here. 

“Jon brought you,” Sharpy says, coming out of his kitchen with a Hot Pocket and a big bottle of seltzer that he drops onto the coffee table in front of Patrick. 

Jon? Patrick thinks blankly, before he realizes Sharpy means Jonny. “How’d he...how’d he find you?” Patrick asks, creaking up into a sitting position. He doesn’t get why the hell Jonny went out of his way. Patrick wouldn’t have for him. 

“I’m not sure honestly. Unless he knows the password to your phone,” Sharpy says. “What is it? Your birth year?”

It’s 7-5-3-1, actually, but Sharpy definitely doesn’t need to know that. He’s irked that Jonny figured it out. 

“He told me to ask you some basic questions to make sure you weren’t like, concussed or whatever,” Sharpy tells him. “What’s 4+2?” 

“6,” Patrick replies. “Seriously, Jonny brought me here?” 

“You don’t remember?” Sharpy answers. “What year did Rocky IV come out?” 

“1985,” Patrick replies. “No, I don’t remember much.”

“Wrong! It was 1982!” Sharpy shoots back. “Jon said you won. If you look like this, I’d hate to see the other guy.” 

“Pretty sure he’s doing better than me,” Patrick says with a groan, dropping back to the couch. “And you’re wrong. That’s the one with Mr. T. Rocky IV was 1985.” 

“Why didn’t you just tap out? It’s just one fight, and you look...” he gestures at Patrick, “...like death.” 

“I’m not gonna—” Patrick starts and then cuts himself off with a huff. “I don’t do that. You can’t—you can’t tap out in a real fight. If a guy’s gonna take me down, it’s fair and square, not because I hit the floor and said I couldn’t take it anymore.” 

“You’re a moron.” 

“So they tell me,” Patrick replies dryly. 

“He also said you were really insistent about not going to the emergency room,” Sharpy says shaking his head. 

“Honestly, if I walked into an ER looking like I did last night, they woulda called the cops. Hands down.” 

“So what, you’re just gonna like...risk your brain liquefying?” 

Patrick steals Sharpy’s hot pocket and takes a bite, shrugging mightily. 

*

Sharpy ends up dragging him to the health center. He said Jonny told him to get Patrick some form of medical assistance, no matter what Patrick said, and when Patrick protested, he said that Jonny was terrifying and he was going to listen to him. Patrick didn’t see why Jonny was more terrifying than he was, but when he pointed that out Sharpy laughed at him. 

When they get there, Sharpy spins some story about how they were out last night downtown and got into it with some out-of-town frat assholes. It sounds ridiculous to Patrick’s ear, but the girl behind the counter eats it right up. 

Patrick turns to him while they sit in the waiting room. “Butter just wouldn’t melt in your mouth.” 

“You know it, buddy.” Sharpy grins at him. “The question is why aren’t you any better at lying?” 

“I..” Patrick starts. The truth is that his whole life everybody’s always assumed the worst of the poor kid from Broadway-Fillmore. Why the fuck would he bother coming up with some elaborate lie, when trash was written plain as day on his face. It’s discomfiting though, because even though he patently doesn’t fit in amongst all of these kids whose parents could afford to pay their full tuition, he certainly wouldn’t fit back at home anymore either. “Oh, shut up.”

“Wow, I’m glad we came,” Sharpy tells him. “You’re really roasting me with these comebacks today. I just don’t know how to explain it.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes. 

All told he’s got a horrible black eye, a mild concussion, and his third and fourth ribs are broken on the left side. Nothing to do about that but wait six weeks for them to get better. The Battle is out. $100,000 cash down the drain. That could’ve paid for two years of tuition. The prize for the fight was $2000 and Patrick always puts money down on himself, so he’s not walking away empty handed, but he’s sick and unhappy with himself. He doesn’t know where his head was at last night. The guy he was fighting was good, but he wasn’t better. Patrick should’ve had that. He’s sturdy, he’s used to just walking it off. Now, fuck, he’s not just missing The Battle, but every smaller fight that could’ve given him a cushion also.

The doctor fusses over him. Tells him he should’ve come in sooner so he could get the lacerations on his face stitched up. Now they’re gonna scar. Patrick doesn’t really give a fuck. He’s not here to be pretty.

“I see that you were in here for another head trauma not that long ago though,” the doctor says. “And when I was going over the X-Rays, I noticed evidence of a lot of old fractures. This one in your left scaphoid looks like it was quite bad. Do you commonly get into fights?” 

Patrick hesitates, caught. He’s sitting on the exam table in the stupid paper gown feeling entirely exposed. 

“Doctor patient confidentiality, Mr. Kane,” the doctor tells him gently. 

“I uh...I do some mixed martial arts,” Patrick says after a long pause. 

The doctor nods. “I figured it was something like that. You don’t get injuries like these from your calculus homework.” 

Patrick smiles weakly and shrugs. He got his first boxer’s fracture when he was nine in a playground fight, but it’s been a long time since he didn’t know how to throw a punch. He’s not fighting bare-knuckles anymore at least. His hands are probably as safe as they’ve ever been. 

“Are you taking the necessary precautions? Wearing a mouthguard? Gloves?”

“Yup,” Patrick nods. “I train with a gym off of the red line. I’m being careful.” 

They both know Patrick is full of shit. “Well, you’re going to want to take it easy for a bit. I’ll give you a prescription for those ribs. Should make moving a little easier.” 

“It’s fine,” Patrick says quickly. “I don’t need any pills. I’ve had worse.” 

“No?” the doctor says and then sighs. “I wish I could say I didn’t believe you. Please take care of yourself. I’d prefer not to see you here again.” 

Patrick salutes him and the doctor snorts, leaving Patrick to get changed. After Patrick gingerly pulls his clothes back on, he goes and finds Sharpy sitting outside, dicking around on his phone. 

“You can tell your new buddy that I’m fine,” Patrick tells him snidely. 

Sharpy grins. “I think I will.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes. He pulls a piece of gum out of his pocket and stuffs into his mouth. It hurts to breathe too hard, and it’s gonna look fucking great when he goes to classes like this. 

“What do you have against Jon anyway?” 

Patrick pops his gum and shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to explain how much Jonny and Duncan’s entitlement gets to him. Especially not to Sharpy, who’s grandma is paying his whole way, plus the apartment he splits with Burr and some applied mathematics major who’s never around. “He rubs me the wrong way.” 

“Yeah, obviously,” Sharpy replies. “He doesn’t seem to like you much either, honestly. But still, he bailed your ass out of there and practically carried you up my stairs. So maybe you should ease up off of him.” 

“Okay, mom,” Patrick says. “Whatever you say.” 

He tries very hard not to think about the other way Jonny unsettles him, but in the attempt to think around it, it plays it over and over in his mind in technicolor. The feeling that had gone through Patrick when he’d seen his come on Jonny’s upturned face, how he’d felt with Jonny’s fingers carding through his hair, telling him how good he was sucking Jonny’s cock. If he examines it too closely, he’s afraid of what it could mean, and it doesn’t make sense to him anyway. He’s liked girls his whole life. He thinks about girls constantly, this weird gay bullshit is just Jonny fucking with his head. 

*

The semester’s coming to a close—finals bearing down. Sharpy and Andrew stay on him like he’s planning to fight somebody at any moment, which is ridiculous, Patrick needs to pass his classes, and he doesn’t have a deathwish. He’s not going to try to get in the cage like this. Would that he could, but he does have some sense of self-preservation. When he’s not busy cramming, he’s trying desperately to figure out what he’s going to do this summer. He’s only a freshman, so even if applications hadn’t passed, he wouldn’t have gotten anything with BCG or McKinsey, which is eventually the dream. There are a couple of VC firms that are looking for interns, but he’s not sure, even with the offered stipends, that he can afford to spend the summer in Silicon Valley.

Sharpy and Burr are getting ready to graduate, but neither of them seem to be taking the job search even half as serious as Patrick is taking his summer plans. But then, neither of them hate the thought of going home for a while if it comes down to that. Not the way Patrick does. 

He hasn’t heard from anybody in his family in weeks. He tried sending Jacks a text, but he got a _sorry, talk later_ from her and then never heard back. He knows she must be mad at him, but she’s always been his little buddy, and the brushoff aches. It’s not enough to make him regret his decision though, and that, he realizes, is what makes it worse—like he’s losing pieces of himself out here. Losing his family. 

When it finally stops hurting to cough, he goes back to the gym to work with Q on the appropriate strengthening exercises for his ribs. 

“You’ll be getting the shit kicked out of you in no time,” he says when he gets Patrick working on the bike. 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” 

“Doesn’t seem to be in short supply with you,” Q replies. 

He sees Jonny again after a few days trying to fumble his way back to normal and manages to give him a grudging nod. After a moment Jonny nods back. He’s getting ready for The Battle, stepping up his workout regimen steadily to be in the best shape. After the tornado incident Q deliberately kept them apart when he was looking for sparring matchups and but now, even though Patrick hasn’t been cleared to spar yet and any plans to do so are purely theoretical, he’s decided that he’s not going to tangle with Jonny once he’s given a clean bill of health. Patrick doesn’t like the way his stomach turns over and his palms sweat when he sees him. 

“He’s gonna take it again this year,” Saader says appreciatively, watching as Jonny gets Steeger into a painful-looking kneebar Patrick saw coming a mile away. It’s weird to realize just how thoroughly he knows Jonny’s style now. Patrick’s face flames up when he thinks about why that is. 

“Oh?” he says, clearing his throat. 

Saader looks over at him. “Yeah, well, I thought you maybe had a chance, but with you being injured and all. There are a couple of other guys who’ll give him a real fight from other gyms, but Jonny’s got more grit than all of them.” 

Patrick snorts. He doesn’t know about that. There aren’t a lot of rules in this world, but there are still some. He’d like to see how Jonny would do in an alley fight, back against the wall, trying to keep his friends from getting beat to hell, and desperately hoping nobody’s got a knife on them. He’s starting to think though, the way Jonny keeps pulling the rug out from under him, maybe Jonny would be just fine. He breathes out and moves off the bikes to start doing the hated split squats. 

*

Patrick tries not to spend money at all, especially since his potential to earn more has pretty much dried up for the next couple of months, but he’s been spending a lot of time at Z & H with Andrew, trading tutoring for coffee and breakfast sandwiches. He’s not really sure he gets what the big deal is about the Metropolis they brew which Shawsy swears is better than anything else you can get in the entire city. He drinks coffee to help him stay awake, not because he has grand gustatory paroxysms or whatever, but he likes the place well enough. 

It’s a good spot to get all the work he needs to do in finishing up essays and trying to get passage IDs down for his final exams. He’s only got one remaining class before reading period starts up for real. 

“How come you never spend any money? Like never at all.” Andrew asks after he’s gotten himself his second nutella and banana sandwich and Patrick’s declined a refill on his coffee. 

“Are you calling me cheap?” Patrick asks without looking up from his work. 

“No, man, of course not,” Andrew says immediately. “I just don’t get why you go in for all this self-denial shit. You don’t come out with us when we go to the movies or to dinner and like aside from letting me get you coffee so you’ll help me with econ, you won’t let us pay for you either.” 

Patrick chews at his lower lip, unsure how to answer. “I don’t need any of that stuff,” he says finally. 

“But aren’t you winning like, mad bank off of the fights?” 

“I send most of it back to my family,” he says, eyes down on his own spiky handwriting. Andrew’s on financial aid, but that’s only because his parents make just under the $90,000 a year threshold. Patrick’s family’s income is a joke, even with him out of the house. His mom can barely work most times and his dad brings in nothing from his job at the dealership. Erica’s got a job at the mall now, which helps—when her stupid boyfriend doesn’t spend her money. He’s got it better than some people back home. At least his dad still has work. It’s a little hard to justify an extra beer when his grandpa’s sick and his parents are worried about their bills going to collections. Patrick would rather die than let Sharpy or Andrew pay his way for him. It smarts.

“Don’t worry about it, alright?” he finally says. It must come out a little sharper than he intends, because Andrew holds up his hands, face apologetic. 

Patrick changes the subject. 

A few days later after class has ended and he’s packing up, Professor Savard calls him aside. “Patrick, can you stay for a moment?”

Patrick immediately feels guilty although he’s not sure what he could’ve possibly done. He cycles through the last couple of days, wondering if there’s any way Savard could possibly know about the fights, if he’s done anything otherwise incriminating that he could’ve caught wind of. 

“What is it?” he asks, trying to keep his voice measured. 

“Patrick,” Savard says. “I have never seen work like yours.”

Patrick stares at him, hand fisted in the strap of his backpack. “I didn’t cheat.” 

Savard shakes his head. “No, no, of course you didn’t. I just thought it should be said that,” he pauses meaningfully, “I’m very impressed.” 

“You’re...impressed?” Patrick asks slowly, unsure he believes what he’s hearing. 

“I don’t know if you have plans already, but I’d like to offer you a research fellowship for the summer. I could really use somebody with a mind like yours. I’m looking at some of the data you dug up. I’ve never seen stuff like this from an undergrad!” 

Patrick remains silent, astonished. 

“The department can pay you. A modest amount. Probably $20 an hour,” Savard tells him. His face has taken on a rueful cast. “I can tell this is not what you expected to hear. Why don’t you take some time to think it over?” 

“No!” Patrick says, finally finding his voice. 

“No?” Savard replies. 

“I mean, no I don’t need time, I’ll do it,” Patrick corrects. “I—that would be—that would be amazing, professor. I don’t know what to say.” 

Savard smiles. “For now, thank you will do.” 

“Thank you!” Patrick says in a rush. 

He grins all through the rest of the afternoon. Even working the bags at the gym as other guys spar without him doesn’t bring him down. 

“Kid, you’re freaking me out,” Q tells him. “Quit it with the damn smiling.” 

Patrick smiles wider. “I’ll do my best, sir.” 

Patrick runs into Jonny as Jonny’s on his way out of the showers. He’s wet, droplets running in rivulets down his chest, and his hair is slicked back with water. He stops when he sees Patrick. It’s just the two of them in here and Patrick has the strong sensation of Jonny looming over him, remembering horribly what it felt like going to his knees in his apartment that very first time, and everything that happened since then. Patrick swallows. There’s a strange heat in his belly he doesn’t like. He’s got shit with his family, and shit with school to work out, he doesn’t have time to deal with this too. 

He turns around and leaves, opting to ride the L back in his gear, covered in his own stink, to shower at the dorms instead. 

*

He still has to figure out what to do about housing in the summer. When he mentions it to Sharpy, Sharpy looks at him like he’s cooking something up. 

“Y’know. We’ve got that fourth room we’re just storing exercise equipment and old game consoles in,” he says as they’re cramming for exams. “We could clear it out?” 

“I can’t pay much for rent,” Patrick says slowly. 

Sharpy makes a dismissive noise. “Rent! You don’t have to pay rent.” 

“I don’t take charity, Sharpy,” Patrick tells him firmly. 

“Jesus, why do you always make shit so hard? Fine. For that shitty little room you’ll owe us $300 a month.” Patrick hesitates. It’s still less than Sharpy could get for it if he put the room up on craigslist. Sharpy rolls his eyes. “Just say yes, Patrick, you know you want to. We’ll probably spend it on weed and beer since my Grandmother owns the damn house.” 

“Yes, yes, fine,” Patrick snaps, blushing, which probably doesn’t sound very grateful, but he’s not good with people trying to help him, and recently, it seems like a lot of that’s been happening. He doesn’t know how to deal with it. “You’re such a freeloader. You could send that money to your grandmother.” 

“But how will I keep myself in prostitutes and black tar heroin?” Sharpy replies. 

“My hard-earned cash apparently,” Patrick grumps. His eye snags on this girl Sharpy likes, Abby, at a table in a different part of the library. Sharpy’s been unsuccessfully pretending he hasn’t noticed her the entire time they’ve been here. “Looks like Abby’s flirting with that guy on the rowing team.” 

“Man, when will you be cleared to fight?” Sharpy asks. “I liked you better when you were beating people up.” 

Patrick cracks up. 

*

He moves into Sharpy and Burr’s house the same day that finals ends. Professor Savard has him starting work the very next day. He’s busy, between working out and doing Savard’s research and trying to keep up with Burr and Sharpy’s debauched graduation celebrating, but Patrick thinks about his family a lot. His mother calls him a couple times, which makes it hard, especially when she cries and begs him to come home. He has a million reasons not to go. This incredible opportunity, can’t afford the plane ticket, so on and so forth, but he can't lie to himself. The thought of Buffalo makes him feel cold and scared and small. A desperate memory of unhappiness crawling over him. 

Chicago isn’t perfect. It’s not what he expected. But it doesn’t have the oppressive weight of history bearing down on him. 

He’s been successful at avoiding Jonny too. Even after he goes back to the doctor and they finally declare him concussion-symptom free. 

“Don’t be foolish,” the doctor tells him. 

Patrick shrugs. “I would never.” 

“Of course not,” the doctor replies sarcastically, tapping his charts. 

The Battle is in a week, and Patrick’s kept up pretty good. Once his ribs healed, avoiding head contact, he was back in the cage, but it doesn’t matter, because they gave his spot away to somebody else. Patrick tries not to feel bitter about it. He should’ve won that stupid fight a lot sooner, not let that guy fuck him up so bad. If he had, he’d be in the opening round right now. 

He can pick up a few of the chump change bouts now though. He wins the first one handily and hands Sharpy enough money in cash to pay for his little room for the rest of the summer. 

“Jesus, now I’m going to have to carry this shit to the bank,” Sharpy says, staring at the stacks of bills. 

“Need me to come with you?” Patrick asks. “Hold your hand?” 

“No offense, PKane, you are one of the least physically imposing guys I know. Pretty sure bringing you along would just bring all the boys to the yard. And I don’t need you to _kill_ them when they inevitably get up in your face.” 

“Oh, shut up,” Patrick replies. “Gimme one punch!” 

Sharpy grins. “One Punch Peekaboo, I like it.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes. Sharpy picked up that peekaboo thing from the guys at the gym. It’s nice living with Sharpy and Burr though. Sharpy’s eerily and unexpectedly domestic, beer can tower aside. He likes to cook and won’t let Patrick get by on Bagel Bites. 

“You’re such a college eater,” he says, when he looks at the groceries that Patrick brings home to stock his shelf in the kitchen. Cereal, hot pockets, yogurt, and gatorade. 

Patrick snorts. “I _am_ in college.” 

He’s kept the rust off at the gym. Steeger says as much when they go up against each other. Of course, Jonny does win The Battle. Patrick goes with Sharpy and Burr and finds he doesn’t even feel that bitter watching the ref hold Jonny’s hand up at the end of the championship bout. Everything is going really good. He’s got his worries, but those never go away. Mostly, he’s pretty happy. 

Until the cellphone video. 

*

It’s grainy and dark, hard to tell initially what’s going on, but the camera moves slightly and then it’s clear that it’s a guy sucking another guy’s dick while a crowd of people watch. Patrick’s not recognizable, face shadowed, features blocked by the angle of Jonny’s body, but Jonny says his name and the Buffalo Sabres cap he has on in the frame is one he wears all the time. 

By the time Andrew sends him the clip he somehow found up on tumblr on a frat bro douche porn blog, it’s got 700 notes. It had been accompanied by a “is this u?” email that had made him physically ill. It’s been up for weeks with him none-the-wiser. He doesn’t know why the fucking thing is so popular. Tumblr agrees to delete it, but the whole two hours Patrick waits, pacing by his computer for them to finally get rid of it, take hours off his life. Any moment now they’d said. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Sharpy says to him over and over again, expression so concerned. Patrick can barely look at him. None of his friends at school knew. Not even guys at the gym really knew. Or at least they weren’t talking. Now everybody knows. 

“Who was the original poster?” Patrick asks, slumping down in the corner of his bedroom, his head in his hands. 

“Uh, lemme check,” Sharpy says, refreshing the page on Patrick’s laptop and clicking on a few things. “It says the source is a JT23?”

“JT23?” Patrick asks, lifting his head, ice rushing through his veins. “JT as in Jonathan Toews? 23 as in his age?” 

“Oh, come on,” Sharpy protests. “You can’t think...” 

“Yes I fucking well can!” Patrick shouts back. 

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he make it that obvious?” 

Patrick growls, gathering his keys and wallet together and slamming his laptop closed. “Because he doesn’t fucking care if I know?” 

“C’mon,” Sharpy says, placatingly. “I know you’re mad, but let’s just take a moment.” 

“He got me to suck his dick in public, Sharpy! You don’t know how much of a bastard he can be.” Patrick nearly tells him about the other times, but stops himself at the last moment. It’s the last thing he wants Sharpy to know, even in service of a point. Especially because all Sharpy has to ask is ‘why did you go through with it?’ He wouldn’t understand. “I’m going out.” 

“Out where?” Sharpy asks. Patrick shoots him a look and he sighs. “Just like, maybe try asking him why he did it?” 

“Sharpy, he can’t do this to me,” Patrick replies. “I cannot _let him_ do this to me.” 

Sharpy opens his mouth but Patrick turns on his heel and slams the door to his bedroom behind him. He doesn’t fucking need to hear Sharpy’s ‘cooler heads will prevail’ bullshit. He doesn’t understand how helpless Patrick feels right now, exposed to the world like that. The fucking tags and comments—they make him want to climb into the shower and scrub and scrub. If there was anything he never expected to be called in life, it was a “dirty fucking slut” who was “greedy for cock.” He’s not going to stand for that. The username and the timeline fits, right around when Patrick cockblocked Jonny’s date. If it’s not him, who the hell else would it be? Why would they do that?

He goes to Jonny’s apartment and rings the doorbell repeatedly until Jonny finally buzzes him up. 

When he gets up to Jonny’s floor, he’s already at the door waiting. “What the fuck, man? What’s your problem?”

“What’s my problem?” Patrick cries, shoving Jonny back through the door. He spits, “What’s my fucking problem? You’re a real laugh, man” 

“I don’t know what this is about,” Jonny says with raised hands. 

“You did it, so fucking own it,” Patrick says, shoving him again. He’s breathing hard, so angry it’s spilling out of him. 

“Jesus christ,” Jonny says, holding him off. “Own what? You’re acting crazy, you know that.” 

Patrick punches him. Jonny rocks back a step away from him, one hand at his mouth and the other up like he’s trying to fend off further blows. His eyes burn with a hurt betrayal. He doesn’t put his fists up, he doesn’t come at Patrick at all. He just stands there. So Patrick punches him again, this time in the solar plexus.

“Fight me, damn it,” he says when Jonny just stares back at him, gasping in deep breaths, trying to draw air back in, unresisting. 

“No,” Jonny replies between ragged swallows of air, dropping his hands to his sides. 

“You don’t get to do this,” Patrick replies. “You’re a fucking scumbag, and nobody but me has got any idea, huh?” 

Jonny’s jaw works at the insult, but he still doesn’t move, doesn’t retaliate. Patrick doesn’t know what this sudden pacifistic bullshit it, but he hates it. He wants to tear Jonny apart. He wants to make him bleed. 

“What, you need a bet to do this? Alright, I’ll give you a bet,” Patrick says, moving in to hit him again. Jonny blocks it this time, but steps clear of Patrick, still refusing to engage. “I bet my ass this time. You can fuck me if you win. How do you like that, you queer piece of shit?” 

That must be the last straw, because Patrick catches Jonny’s sudden unexpected fist on the ribs. He grunts from the hit and looks up, eyes blazing. Good. This is a pain he can deal with. The next thing he knows, he and Jonny are locked body to body, scrabbling around the apartment, hitting at whatever soft bits they can reach, stumbling over the furniture. It’s a mess, a real fucking street fight. Looks like Patrick finally found himself one. 

Distantly he knows he shouldn’t fight like this. His emotions are getting the best of him, and he’s not pacing himself. Jonny’s fighting defensively, like all he’s trying to do is wear Patrick out and then he can send him on his merry way home. Patrick hates it. 

He hears Jonny shouting something at him, about neighbors and the cops, and about how he doesn’t understand what’s going on. It’s all bullshit. Patrick doesn’t care about any of it. He does care about the way that Jonny keeps leaving himself open, like he’s not taking this seriously at all, but Patrick’s had it. He grabs his head in a muay thai clinch. It’s one he’s seen Jonny use, going for the whip, ready to jam Jonny’s face into his knee, but Jonny gets his hands up at the last second, delivering two blows to the stomach, so Patrick shoves him. Jonny, off-kilter, stumbles over an end table and hits the ground. So much for this stupid fucking expensive apartment. But just when Patrick’s going in for the kill he rolls to his feet, knocking Patrick back. Patrick just keeps swinging even though his punches are going wild. He doesn’t know what else to do. He just needs Jonny to feel this sensation, this betrayal, whatever way he can. He’s crying, he realizes, the tears pouring down his cheeks. Nothing is ever easy in this life. Where does it stop?

Jonny grabs his arm right out of the air and then he tumbles back, taking Patrick to the hardwood with a resounding smack. Patrick can barely breathe through all the wind knocked out of him, but his immediate concern is the arm bar Jonny has him in, yanking at him, using his crotch to hyper-extend Patrick’s elbow. Patrick tries desperately to pull his arm out from between Jonny’s thighs, but it’s useless. Jonny keeps tugging on his arm until Patrick’s ligaments are approaching the height of their tensile strength. He’s not fucking going down like this, though. He won’t. 

“Tap, Patrick,” Jonny says, voice strained and hoarse. 

“Not this time, fucker,” Patrick bites out, voice ending on a ragged shout of pain. Jonny pushes harder, and Patrick’s arm is searing. The tendons and the bone are going to snap if he keeps it up. He’s in agony. 

“Whatever the fuck it is, it’s not worth your arm,” Jonny thumps him in the side with his foot, still keeping the arm bar tight. He thinks about getting fucked up, about not being able to fight the last time he refused to tap. With an injury like this? He might never be able to use the arm the same way again. Is it worth it? Is the arm worth avoiding Jonny fucking him up the ass?

With a despairing cry, Patrick slaps his hand on the floor. Jonny immediately lets go of the arm bar, scrambling away, his back coming to rest against the wall. His lip bleeds freely and he’s holding his side as he breathes in deep. 

Patrick can’t stop crying in the middle of the floor, curling in on himself. His fucking disastrous life has culminated into a fucking porno clip on a social media site. Where has his future gone now? 

“What happened?” Jonny asks tiredly, head resting back against the wall. 

“Why would you do it, Jonny? Why would you do it?” Patrick sobs out. “I thought—I thought maybe—how could you put that shit up on the internet?” 

“The internet? What the hell?” Jonny asks again, when Patrick doesn’t respond, he thumps his hand against the wall. Voice rising, he says, “You showed up at my house, half-destroyed my living room. Fucking tell me what you’re talking about, or so help me god, I will get you banned from the gym and I’ll do it with a goddamn smile.” 

Patrick reaches into his pocket and hurls his cellphone at Jonny. The video is already queued up. Patrick couldn’t stop watching it, full of shame, wishing so hard it would turn into anything else. “What’s this, JT23?” 

Jonny looks at it for a moment, Patrick can hear the crescendo of cheers coming tinnily from the phone and he knows the exact timestamp of the moment Jonny’s watching. He’s seen it that many times. Jonny drops the phone to the floor, scrubbing a hand across his face. 

“You think that was me?” he says, voice gone cold and flat. 

“Who the fuck else?” Patrick says, finally shrugging himself into a sitting position, wiping off his face. His left arm aches and he keeps shaking it like he can somehow shake the pain out. 

“You’re a real asshole, Kane,” Jonny fires back, finally getting to his feet, knees popping. Patrick stares at him, wide-eyed. “It shows more of my face than yours. I’m not JT23. I don’t know how your fucking messed up brain works, but I would _never_ do that. You’re not the only one with shit to lose, you spiteful fucking—” Jonny seems at a loss for how to finish the sentence, finally spitting out “—brat!” 

“It wasn’t you?” Patrick repeats. 

“No,” Jonny hisses, he tosses Patrick cellphone back at him, nailing him right in the stomach. “Now get the fuck out, or I _will_ call the cops on your stupid ass.” 

Patrick groans as he gets to his feet, legs shaky. He thinks for a moment that Jonny’s staring at him in actual concern for the way he’s moving. He drops his eyes, not wanting to acknowledge it. He doesn’t need Jonny’s pity. 

The fury is gone, leaving behind that deep well of sadness Patrick tries so hard never to face. All of the anger in the world is better than this. But he can’t reach for it. He’s been drained right out, nothing left in the tank. 

He limps to Jonny’s doorway, letting himself out with a gentle click of the knob. 

When he gets out onto the street, he looks up at the sky and wonders what the hell he’s going to do. If it was just some stupid partygoer, then the whole thing is out of his control. He’s done all he can do. No way to fix it. Who knows who was even there that night? And Patrick doesn’t remember who was standing over Jonny’s shoulder. The video doesn’t leave a single clue. He doesn’t know how to live with that. 

Never give up, he thinks to himself, but another voice in his head pipes up. Tap, it says, let it go. 

Let it go.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So it’s going to be like this? Fine. Jonny wants to watch? Then he’s getting a goddamn show. He shucks off his sweatshirt and shirt, stepping out of his jeans and kicking them aside, and grabs up the bottle of lube that’s nearly full._
> 
> _“Don’t go on many dates these days?” he snarks, shaking the bottle._
> 
> _Jonny snorts. “Whose fault would that be?”_
> 
> _Patrick makes a face at him. “I only got in your way once, man. If you can’t close that’s on you.”_
> 
> _Jonny steps in close, so close that Patrick has to look up to meet his eyes, close enough to kiss. “Twice” he says in a low voice._
> 
> _Patrick’s face flames up in another hot blush._

Patrick comforts himself that the post is at least down off tumblr. It's a weight off Patrick’s shoulders, even as he still feels sick that it was out there in the world for any time at all. The guys at the gym haven’t said anything about it. Not that they would. They haven’t mentioned anything before and Patrick and Jonny’s wagers haven’t exactly been a secret. They think Jonny’s cool, and anyway why should they care what Patrick does. It’s just not a matter that ever comes up, for which he’s grateful. He’s deeply paranoid a gif version is going to appear on twitter on one of those stupid porn twitters that half of his friends from home follow, but Sharpy keeps reminding him that they’d have to be looking at the gay stuff anyway. Sharpy had been all set to chirp Shawzy for the very same thing, but apparently some girl he’s started dating back home had it on her computer. Maybe this is as far as it goes. Maybe his father and everyone else from home never have to find out. He’s praying for that. 

Jonny doesn’t contact him afterwards for the terms of their bet and each day that passes without a word from him causes the dread grows in Patrick’s stomach. 

After five days of yawning silence, he breaks and types out, _Let’s get this over with_ , and hovers over the ‘send’ button for a long moment. He breathes in deep and makes himself push the button. For the next hour he stares at his phone, practically jumping on it every time it buzzes, even though he’s got work for Professor Savard that needs to get done. 

Jonny finally replies at the end of Patrick’s work day as he’s heading back to the house. He’d given up waiting for a reply and now has nothing to distract him from the stupid text lit up on his screen. 

_Tonight then_ it says. 

Patrick swallows and rubs at his face. The furious expression on Jonny’s face as he ordered him out of his apartment is seared onto his brain.

*

Jonny takes his time coming to the door that night after buzzing him in, enough that Patrick’s started shifting from foot to foot awkwardly. He checks his phone for the second time, proving to himself that it’s only been a minute and not the interminable hours it feels like. He’s almost startled when the door finally does open, revealing a grim-faced Jonny.

Patrick meets his gaze with a glare, straightening out his spine. After a moment, Jonny rolls his eyes skyward and shakes his head. 

“Come on,” he says, turning around and disappearing into his apartment. 

He leads Patrick back to his bedroom. Buying himself time, Patrick drops his bag by Jonny’s coffee table and then pauses just outside the door. He hasn’t been in here yet and it feels strange and perilous to follow him inside. He breathes out and walks over the threshold. 

The room is spare, with the only real nod to comfort coming from the generous queen bed and its soft-looking eiderdown. It smells like expensive aftershave and freshly laundered sheets. There’s a Northwestern sweatshirt thrown haphazardly across the foot of the bed and a bookshelf crammed with what Patrick realizes are textbooks. He reads them off in his head: _Civil Procedure: Theory & Practice_; _Problems in Contract Law: Cases and Materials_ ; _Criminal Law: Doctrine, Application, and Practice_ ; _Tort Law and Alternatives: Cases and Materials_ ; _Cases and Materials on Constitutional Law_ ; _Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices_ , on and on and on. There are even more textbooks spread across the top of a desk lined up against the window. Suddenly all of the Northwestern shit clicks in his head. 

“You’re in law school?” Patrick asks, blinking at him. “But why do you...” he trails off, unsure. 

“I needed the money,” Jonny says with a shrug, leaning back against his dresser. 

“You?” Patrick asks incredulously, his eyes darting around the room. Jonny hadn’t spent a lot of time on decorating, at least not here in the bedroom, but Patrick knows this place can’t be cheap. He doesn’t understand—the way Jonny dresses, this apartment, he’d assumed from the very beginning Jonny must have rich parents. 

Jonny clears his throat, forestalling any of the thousand confused questions Patrick wants to ask. “Did you prep?” 

“Huh?” 

“Before you came here, did you prep?” 

Patrick furrows his brows. “For what?” 

Jonny closes his eyes, pursing his lips. He shakes his head again before opening them to mutter, “Straight guys,” before going to the nightstand and pulling something out of the top drawer. He tosses it onto the bed and goes to lean back on the dresser. 

“Open yourself up with that,” he says. Patrick leans forward, catching the label, and realizes it’s lube. 

“And, what, you’re just gonna watch?” Patrick asks, looking back at him, knowing his cheeks are on fire. 

“Maybe,” Jonny says with a shrug. “If you don’t bore me.” 

“You—” Patrick breaks off, remembering suddenly why he hates Jonny so much. He knows just how to stick the knife in and twist for maximum humiliation. “I can’t just—” 

“You want me to go into the other room and wait until you’re done?” Jonny asks, dryly amused. 

Patrick bites at his lip and inhales a breath through his nose, trying to remain calm. The last thing either of them needs is to start another fight, but Patrick is seriously considering punching him anyway right now. 

So it’s going to be like this? Fine. Jonny wants to watch? Then he’s getting a goddamn show. He shucks off his sweatshirt and shirt, stepping out of his jeans and kicking them aside, and grabs up the bottle of lube that’s nearly full. 

“Don’t go on many dates these days?” he snarks, shaking the bottle. 

Jonny snorts. “Whose fault would that be?” 

Patrick makes a face at him. “I only got in your way once, man. If you can’t close that’s on you.” 

Jonny steps in close, so close that Patrick has to look up to meet his eyes, close enough to kiss. “Twice” he says in a low voice. 

Patrick’s face flames up in another hot blush. With a defiant glance he kicks off his boxers. Jonny’s gaze doesn’t waver. Patrick blows out a breath and throws himself onto the bed with all the bravado he can muster, turning over and doing his best not to project his discomfort at being naked in front of Jonny while he remains fully clothed. Jonny watches him, face inscrutable, but he doesn’t comment when Patrick fumbles with the lube. It takes a couple of attempts to get his fingers slicked up and then he dithers for a moment trying to think up his best angle of approach. 

Patrick hasn’t watched gay porn—he knows things because he’s not an idiot, but he’s thinking maybe now he should’ve. They don’t ever do prep in straight porn, everybody’s always greased up and ready to go. Patrick hesitates with his hand between his thighs. Pressing up against his hole, his index finger seems suddenly intimidating. He reminds himself that he’s going to have to take Jonny’s entire cock, and Jonny, in keeping with his height, is proportional all over. Patrick’s finger is barely anything in comparison. 

He’s too slow to hide his wince when he finally shoves the tip of his finger past the ring of muscle, but Jonny doesn’t react. Patrick grits his teeth and moves his gaze to the perfectly innocuous ceiling. The ceiling won’t incite him to commit murder, surely. 

Patrick takes his time with working himself open, first because he’s trying hard not to panic at the thought of what comes next, and then second, after he’s gotten used to the intrusion of another finger, because he’s getting a spreading satisfaction in making Jonny cool his heels. Burning with embarrassment, trying so hard to keep himself together, finding a place where he can still needle Jonny is welcome. He wonders how long Jonny will just stand there, in silence, watching him fingerfuck himself before telling Patrick to get on with it. 

Although when Patrick aims a surreptitious look over at him he doesn’t look particularly interested in starting anything. It’s one of the least erotic experiences of his life, his cock soft and limp against his thigh, and when Patrick meets his eyes Jonny just looks blank, the same look that had so galled Patrick when he was nutting on his face. 

Patrick can’t draw this out any longer. He’s never been good at waiting Jonny out, that much is clear. He pulls his fingers free on a frustrated exhale. “Fuck, just do it, okay?” 

Jonny looks like he wants to say something. For one moment, watching the emotions pass over his face, Patrick thinks he’s going to call it off, but then he clears his throat and tells Patrick, “On your hands and knees.” 

There is no good way to do this, but turning his back on Jonny, offering up his ass like this, makes him feel more vulnerable than anything else they’ve ever done. Worse even than when he was sitting on that patio choking on Jonny’s cock to an audience. He fists his hands in the sheets and reminds himself to just plow through it. His life is a series of moments that he’s had to grin and bear. This is just another one. 

Nevertheless, it takes everything Patrick has when he hears the clink of Jonny’s belt and then feels the bed dip behind him. Jonny takes a moment to get situated, but then his hands are on Patrick’s hips, sliding down over his cheeks, spreading them in a way that has Patrick holding back a grunt of discomfort. 

There’s the bump of a latex covered cock up against his hole and then, without preamble, Jonny starts nudging it inside him. He knows Jonny’s going slow, but Patrick realizes bitterly, struggling not to cry out as Jonny forces his cock inside, that he shouldn’t have let his nerves and impatience get the better of him. He should’ve prepped himself longer. As it is, he can barely manage it, huffing and puffing like he’s just gone five rounds in a title fight. 

Jonny stills when it feels like Patrick’s been stuffed to the hilt, and then leans in, saying close to Patrick’s ear, “Think you can take the rest?” 

_The rest?_ Patrick thinks frantically, even as he hisses out, “Fuck you!” 

Jonny tsks, but then he’s slamming the rest of the way home and Patrick has to choke back a wail. 

Patrick’s thighs shake and tears have started gathering at the corner of his eyes. He curses the day he ever laid eyes on Jonny, the day he ever got it into his head to wager him anything. _It hurts_. Patrick’s done anal with chicks, but he had no idea, none at all. And Jonny isn’t taking it easy on him, not anymore. Not that Patrick would want that, soft words and placations. That would just make all of this worse. Patrick hates himself enough already. For Jonny to fuck him like that, like a girl, he couldn’t take it. 

Patrick cries out again when Jonny presses down on his shoulders with a heavy hand, forcing his chest and cheek flat to the bed. It changes up the angle and Patrick feels a whole new reason for distress. He’d always thought that whole thing about prostates was a load of horseshit—a magic button up guys’ asses that felt almost as good as their cock? But he knows now, oh does he know, it’s not horseshit at all. Jonny’s cock slides across it with every thrust inside, and the intrusion of it still hurts, but he feels all lit up inside now too. His cock is starting to thicken up between his thighs. It makes him tense all over, bracing himself against it, trying not to feel it, but it’s inexorable, each heavy push making his heart stutter in his chest. Patrick’s got his face mashed into Jonny’s blanket, hidden from prying eyes, but he still feels too exposed. He should never have made this deal. 

Jonny’s hand moves on his hips, fingertips sliding across skin in an almost caress, and he shivers. His traitorous body likes how that feels. Jonny’s silent beyond his steady breaths, and Patrick finds himself wishing he would give something away, some sign that he’s enjoying this, that he’s struggling with it the way Patrick is, ashamedly too into it. Jonny shifts again, moving in closer, and now the pressure on his prostate is even greater. Patrick, desperate and sick with himself, has to grab at his cock, fingers tightening in a loop just above his balls. He can’t come like this, he won’t let himself. 

He must say it aloud, flummoxed and out of his head, because Jonny says between panted breaths, “Why do you always have to be so fucking stubborn?” 

Patrick fists a hand in the blankets and doesn’t answer. He refuses to give in to the growing heat warming his belly, because the worst possible outcome is enjoying it. He doesn’t understand how Jonny gets him this crazy and out-of-sorts over and over again. It’s as unavoidable as breathing. He hates the way Jonny messes him up, the way Jonny makes him feel good. The way Jonny’s invades all of his waking moments—his fantasies, his hookups.

Jonny draws his hand down to Patrick’s cock, and Patrick freezes, fear slamming against his ribs. If Jonny starts touching him there, he won’t be able to hold back. He waits, letting out a soft involuntary ‘unh’ with every firm thrust inside his body, but Jonny pauses, just cupping the length of him, big hand closing around the thick shaft. 

“You’ve got a gorgeous cock,” he says, low and against Patrick’s ear. Patrick curls his spine, squeezing his eyes shut at the way that gets him. He’s such a sucker for that. Jonny hesitates for a little longer, letting Patrick just feel his grip, before he smoothly palms the head, unmercifully making Patrick shiver. He starts stroking his fist down to the barrier of Patrick’s thumb and forefinger looped tight around the base of his shaft, and then drags it back up again so steadily that the urge to come grows unbearable, heavy and tight in his balls, the restraining grip of Patrick’s hand the only thing holding back orgasm. And through it all that maddening glide across his prostate with every inward rock of Jonny’s hips. He’s holding himself so rigidly that his muscles are screaming, and still it’s there, an inescapable tension coiling tight in his middle. 

A voice comes floating up to the surface of his mind. Let it go, it says. Let it go. 

Finally, back bowing in defeat, he drops his hand away, and it hits him like a freight train, almost painful in its intensity. His mouth opens on a silent scream as wave after wave of his orgasm wracks his body, and Jonny lets out a low groan, and then he’s coming too, shoved as deep inside Patrick as it’s possible to go. 

*

Patrick lies still on Jonny’s bed, feeling cold and exposed, and somehow unable to make himself get up and leave. Arm thrown over his eyes, he hides his face as best he can. Jonny moves around the room, clattering a little, and Patrick can’t explain why he still hasn’t moved, remaining splayed out on the mattress like a collapsed marionette.

Pathetic, he excoriates himself, what an absolute fucking disgrace. He announces it, numb and unthinking and then he’s crying again like a stupid child, distraught and dropping deep into unalloyed misery. The desperate sobs tear their way out of his chest and he’s helpless against the onslaught of his own feelings. How can he want this, sex, this way, with a man? With _this_ man? Even now, the sense memory of that climax still thrums through his bones, followed by the overwhelming sense that he’s betraying everything he’s been brought up to hold dear. 

The bed depresses as Jonny sits down beside him and Patrick stiffens up, only to start crying harder as Jonny lays a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. 

“I wanted to be something better,” Patrick says, voice cracking. 

“Better than what?” Jonny asks. And Patrick is glad he can’t see his face. The pity in his voice makes him want to vomit. 

“Something better than them,” Patrick says, meaning his folks at home, his cousins, the other kids on the block. Better than watching everybody he knows slowly weave in and out of the prison system, using up EBT halfway through the month, taking bad jobs, and drinking and doing too many pills to survive it. Living hurts, he’s always known that, but god he just wants a rest, a suspension in the endless struggle of it all. The words come pouring out, everything he’s stoppered up since he first came to Chicago, all the fear and worry and endless crushing disappointment in himself folding into the shame of taking another man into his body and liking it. Of wanting to surrender to it there at the end, to give himself over to it. 

“It doesn’t mean anything, Patrick,” Jonny says, and he’s stroking Patrick’s back now. “It doesn’t change anything.” 

Patrick shrugs up at Jonny, wiping his cheek with the backs of his hands. “You wouldn’t fucking understand.” 

“Oh for the love of—” Jonny starts, eyes bright, high-color in his cheeks, ready to launch into some tirade Patrick suspects. He looks good that way, Patrick thinks, all fired up, rather than the restrained and white-lipped fury Patrick’s used to from him. And parsing through it all, Patrick’s starting to think that Jonny must want him, even if he doesn’t precisely like Patrick. He knows it’s stupid that such a thing could make a difference, but it would make him feel better. The edges of that heady power he experienced giving that second blowjob is rising on the horizon. He looks at Jonny, his incensed expression and flashing brown eyes, and he just has to _know._

Before he can second-guess himself, he leans up and slots their mouths together, interrupting Jonny mid-yell. Jonny freezes, and for the span of two breaths Patrick thinks he’s going to shrug him away, but then he’s bending forward, hands coming up to frame Patrick’s face as he deepens the kiss into something more. Triumph rushes through Patrick, better than when he beat Jonny that last time, better than when he beat him the first time. Better than any other victory. Jonny _wants_ him. 

“Fuck,” Jonny says, tearing his mouth away, “you’re going to be the death of me.” 

And then he’s leaning in again, brushing his mouth across Patrick’s. Patrick pushes up into it, taking a little control back, making Jonny hiss when he bites at his lower lip. Patrick swipes his tongue over the injured flesh, sucking it into his mouth. This he knows how to do—always so good at getting people to fall into bed with him. It’s the falling in love part he’s not so good at, he thinks with a sudden zing of pain. He viciously pushes the thought aside as he helps Jonny strip out of the clothes he never even took off when he fucked Patrick. He doesn’t need Jonny to love him, he just needs Jonny to want him so that Patrick can say no, get up off of this bed, and laugh in his face as he leaves. This is how he can turn it all around, come out on sure footing at last.

But as Patrick sinks his fingers in Jonny’s hair, he never reaches ‘no.’ He tells himself that he will, and then, moments later, with Jonny’s hands on him he tells himself the further along they go, the sweeter it’ll feel to rip the rug right out from under Jonny. 

That’s what he means to do anyway. But the moment isn’t right, and keeps not being right. It’s not right when Jonny kisses his way down over Patrick’s throat, nipping at his collarbone and then the muscular curve of one of his pectorals. It’s not right when Jonny’s tongue slides across one nipple and then the other, making Patrick arch and cry out beneath him. It’s not right when Patrick pushes a thigh between Jonny’s legs, or when he reaches down to clutch at the unreal globes of his ass. 

They bring each other off again, once and then twice, using their hands and mouths, and when it’s over Patrick is exhausted and boneless, and Jonny’s flopped out beside him on the bed. 

“This is uh...not how I saw the night going,” Jonny says between deep breaths. The clock on Jonny’s nightstand blinks 4 AM. They’ve been doing this for hours, Patrick is stunned. Any moment he might have seized is long gone. If anything, Jonny turned the tables on him instead. 

Jonny catches sight of his face and lets out a soft laugh. “You okay?” 

Feeling suddenly raw and vulnerable again and desperate to turn the subject away from himself, he grasps at an earlier thread and stumbles out with, “Why did you need the money? I thought with your parents—” 

“My parents kicked me out when I was sixteen,” Jonny interrupts, voice flat. 

“What?” Patrick asks. “Wait, why?” 

Jonny sighs and then raises his brows. “Why do you think?” 

“For being gay?” Patrick asks. He was so wrong about Jonny, all of his ill-conceived notions going up in smoke. Jonny’s been on his own this entire time. Just like him.

It makes Patrick think all too clearly about his own parents finding out about any of this. It wouldn’t be good. There was one kid, Phillip Scaff, on Patrick’s childhood hockey team. He was always a little funny. Patrick’s dad always used to have comments about him, about his parents needing to toughen him up and make sure he didn’t come to the bad. He was caught with gay porn in his locker in middle school. If it had just been some Hustler magazine, it would’ve been no big deal. But the Playgirl magazine sealed his fate. He got the shit kicked out of him every day for the rest of the eighth grade and Patrick’s teachers looked the other way. When his dad found out about little Phillip Scaff, he had one word: “Good.” It makes Patrick ill to think about. 

Jonny closes his eyes and then nods. “It’s been seven years.” 

“What’d you do?” Patrick questions, heart in his throat. 

“Ended up here in Chicago,” Jonny says with a shrug. His eyes are on the ceiling, far away, like he’s back in his memories. “I was just a kid, hadn’t even finished school. They’d had me in tae kwon do and jujutsu and all these other sports practically as soon as I could walk. The martial arts were what stuck. When I came here and I found out about the underground fights where people would pay money to watch—it was all I was good at.” 

Patrick clears his throat, “Saader was telling me you won your first battle at seventeen. I thought he was kidding.” 

Jonny barks out a laugh. “I’ve won it every year since then except for two years ago, and that’s because I was sitting for the LSAT.” 

Patrick whistles. He knows Jonny is good, and that part of what makes him good is his ability to think outside himself and read his opponents. Patrick’s working on it, but as Jonny keeps proving ad nauseum, he’s not there yet. Patrick should know better than anyone the ins and outs of Jonny’s ability, but he’s still impressed. 

“All the best guys come out of Q’s gym. The other people aren’t in his league,” Jonny says. “So, I beat them.” 

“Every time?” 

“Every time,” Jonny repeats, he rolls over, propping his head on his hand. “You’re the only one to give me a run for my money in years.” 

“Gimme time,” Patrick says. “Just gimme time.” 

Jonny laughs. 

“Have you ever tried to talk to them? Your parents?” Patrick asks, bringing the conversation back around. He’s uncomfortably aware of the widening rift between him and his own family, one of his own making. 

Jonny lets out an ugly noise. “No. That’s on them. The last thing my mom ever said to me before I left was that I was sick and an embarrassment. I found later they told all their friends I died. She has some memorial up on facebook commemorating my birthday and wishing me back to god’s perfect light. ” 

Patrick winces and bites at his lip. “I’m sorry I—I didn’t know, man.” 

“It’s not really something I advertise,” Jonny says brusquely. “But whatever, fuck them. I know there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m doing good things with myself now. Gonna stop fighting soon, once I have enough to pay for school. ” 

Patrick’s dully reminded of all the terrible things he’s said to Jonny over the last couple of months. The terrible things a not so small part of him still believes, only about himself now, that he’s weak and shameful and embarrassing. All he hears in his head is that one comment at little Phillip’s suffering: “Good.” It’s okay to maybe want certain things here, but it’s not home. Not where his father can see. He swallows. 

Jonny seems to sense the direction his thoughts have turned, because he rolls over. “It doesn’t say anything about you,” he says again, “I mean it, Patrick. It’s just bodies. None of this lessens you.” 

“I need to be—” perfect, he doesn’t say, but the word hangs there in the air anyway. 

“How is being exactly what you are not right?” Jonny demands. 

“It isn’t,” Patrick insists, the words of his parents roaring up in his ears like a crushing tidal wave. “They’d be so disappointed in me.” 

“So? Fuck ‘em,” Jonny says. 

Patrick kisses him to stop him from talking. 

*

He wakes up the next morning, sticky and sore, to an empty bed. He lies there for a moment taking stock of himself. The apartment is eerily silent and peering through the wan morning light, he’s relieved that Jonny doesn’t seem to be around. He’s not sure he could face him after everything that happened last night. When he turns over the uncomfortable twinge in his ass is reminder enough. Wincing, he can’t believe he fell apart like that, or that they hooked up two more times for no reason at all. He doesn’t even have the excuse of being drunk. He tugs Jonny’s pillow over his face and groans into it with mortification. Then he notices that the pillow smells unavoidably of Jonny and he has to toss it aside. None of this can happen again. 

He makes himself get up, resolving to put the entire ordeal out of his mind as soon as he has his clothes on. It’s a blip, and that’s all it is. 

Carrying his shoes in one hand, he practically sneaks out of Jonny’s apartment and then feels ridiculous as soon as he’s on the other side of the door. it’s stupid. Who cares whether Patrick’s doing a runner from Jonny’s place? Jonny already did the runner on him after all. So why the hollow feeling in his chest? Why the choking sense of disquiet that he’s leaving something undone?

Patrick fists his hands. He hates this wishy washy uncertainty. It serves nothing.

A girl steps out of one of the other apartments on the landing, startling him. She runs his eyes over him, looking curious. “You a friend of Jonathan’s?” 

“No,” Patrick says shortly. 

“Oh,” she says, stopping short and blinking at him, taken aback by his vehemence. “Okay.” 

Patrick shrugs by her and hits the stairs. He doesn’t look back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“What’s he doing here?” he asks, darkly._
> 
> _Sharpy, who’s waiting with him, looks up from his phone. “Huh?”_
> 
> _Patrick shrugs, nods his head at the door, but Jonny has disappeared. “Jonny was here.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long delay, life intervened, and then there was the realization that this was really going to have to be a much longer fic than just seven chapters. So I'm sorry to say, this is not the last chapter. There will probably be at least two more after this, but I'm not confident enough to say yet, so I've left that blank so I don't have to change it again later.

As the end of July approaches, Patrick starts taking fights again. Q shakes his head when he hears him talking with Steeger and Bollig about it after he goes a couple of practice bouts with them. 

“Kid, you go to a school I only wish my kids could get into. What are you doing risking it in the cage?” 

Patrick shrugs and grins. “I gotta eat, coach.” 

“How about a job at Starbucks?” Q demands. 

Patrick feels himself getting annoyed. He snaps, “Did you go after Jonny to get a real job?” 

Q snorts. “There’s no telling him not to do something. He’s gonna do it anyway.” He slants Patrick a look. “You’re similar that way.” 

“So why are you after me about this?” Patrick asks exasperated. 

“Couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try,” Q says. 

“Well don’t, old man,” Patrick bites out, swinging his bag up over his shoulder and heading for the door. “I already got a father,” he calls back over his shoulder. “He’s shit at it too.” 

By the time he’s made it to the L platform he already feels contrite. Every time he thinks he’s saddled his temper, it always comes bubbling back up on him, biting him in the ass. He shivers when he remembers the consequences of last time, the feel of Jonny’s sheets beneath his palm, the measured drive of his—

No. Don’t think about it. He grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to banish the images. After a moment he takes a deep breath in and then lets it out. 

He’s gonna be wiping down equipment for at least a week to get back into Q’s good graces for that one. 

*

It’s been easier recently to reach the place that Q is always yammering about—the place of calm and serenity that should dominate his mind when he spars. Let it go, he keeps reminding himself, even as he tries not to think about the moment in Jonny’s apartment where that first became clear to him. It’s much easier to train with that dispassion, trying to let go of his temper, which has so often lead him astray. Q had him mopping the locker room and doing the laundry for five days straight, before he relented and forgave Patrick. He doesn’t want to repeat that again, all of the laundry the gym produces is fucking nasty. 

He wins his first fight back, toying with the guy before going for a roundhouse kick right out of Jonny’s playbook that knocks the guy flat. The rush of triumph and adrenaline pours through him and Patrick feels on top of the world. He feels like he fits into his skin again. It was just an undercard fight, but it nets him enough that it should cover his grandfather’s bills for a while. While he’s unwrapping his hands, waiting for his winnings in cash, he spies a familiar dark head making his way out the door. Patrick furrows his brows. 

“What’s he doing here?” he asks, darkly. 

Sharpy, who’s waiting with him, looks up from his phone. “Huh?” 

Patrick shrugs, nods his head at the door, but Jonny has disappeared. “Jonny was here.” 

“Oh, him.”

Patrick narrows his eyes at him. “Why do you say it like that?”

Sharpy rolls his eyes at him. “Why do _you_ say it like that?” 

“He’s an asshole!” 

“Mmhmm,” Sharpy answers, looking back down at his phone. 

*

They go out that night, and Patrick feels secure enough in his bank balance that he buys everybody a round. 

“Mr. Moneybags,” Bur mocks, but he salutes Patrick with his pint. “Good show today, man.” 

Patrick leans back in the booth, spreading his arms across the back with a grin. “I’m always a good show.” 

The guys all groan. 

Sharpy’s cell buzzes by his elbow, and he picks it up, letting out a loud whoop when he sees the screen. 

“What’s with you?” Bur asks. 

“I have been working on Abby all night. She’s with her friends at a club. She says we should go meet her.” 

“A club?” Andrew asks. 

“Yeah, c’mon, it’ll be fun! Cheap drinks, hot girls, dancing?” 

Bur and Andrew look skeptical. They all know how much Sharpy has been jonesing after Abby, but dance clubs are not exactly Andrew and Bur’s scene. 

“Because I am a great wingman,” Patrick says, “ I’ll go if you pay the cover.” 

“What?” Sharpy demands. “You made like 20 Gs tonight.” 

Patrick shrugs. “Those are my terms.” 

“Fuck,” Sharpy says, “Fine!” 

“Will my fake hold up?” Andrew asks as they’re heading out the door. He paid 90 bucks for a fake Vermont driver’s license made by one of the kids in their dorm. Vermont was stealthy, he said, nobody knew what a license from Vermont looked like. Unfortunately, “sample license” is copied in small print below Andrew’s signature, so he’s gambling hard on getting a bouncer who’s dumb as a box of bricks. 

“Probably not,” Sharpy says. Without an inch of remorse he waves at Andrew. “Guess we’ll be seeing you tomorrow.” 

“What? Hey!” Andrew protests as they leave him at the stairs to the L platform to catch an Uber. 

As he’s getting into the front passenger’s side of the car, Sharpy calls back. “You didn’t even want to go anyway.”

“You guys fucking suck,” Andrew yells. 

*

“Kaner, Kaner, don’t call him, you’re schwasted,” Sharpy says with a laugh, cutting through his drunken haze. The last few hours are a blur, there had been drinking and dancing, which Patrick always forgets how much he loves until he’s in the thick of it, and now it’s 3 AM. They’re out on the water, splitting a forty, hanging with Abby and her friends. 

He doesn’t remember exactly how he got on this track, but the other end of the line is ringing, and he has important things to say. It feels suddenly imperative that he voice them. 

“Hello?” A voice says on the other end of the line, clogged with sleep. 

Oh. He woke him. “You’re awake,” he says unnecessarily, pacing a few steps away from everybody else to give himself a little privacy for this very important conversation that needs to be had. 

“Yes, now I am,” Jonny grumbles. “Patrick, what the hell is this about?”

“I have things to say,” Patrick says. 

There’s a pause at the other end of the line and then a heavy sigh. “Okay,” Jonny says wearily, and it sounds like he’s sat up in bed now. Patrick feels a little guilty. But not that guilty. Because Jonny is a jerk. Jonny deserves being woken up on a Friday. Also, hello, it’s a Friday, who goes to sleep so early on a Friday. 

“People who have work in the morning,” Jonny replies, sounding unamused. “Patrick, are you drunk?”

Oh. He said all of that out loud. He considers for a long moment how to most eloquently explain his feelings. “You suck,” is what he settles on. “You really suck.” 

“Cool,” Jonny says, definitely not amused. “Thanks, have a good night, Patrick.” 

He hangs up before Patrick can say any of the very many necessary thoughts he has. That is just so uncool. 

“What?” he says pulling his phone away from his ear. “Hey!” 

He looks over at Sharpy and crew who are all watching him intently, looking as extremely amused as Jonny was not. 

“This fucker hung up!” 

“Well, what’d you expect?” Abby giggles. “You woke him up to yell at him.” 

“But I have things to say!” Patrick replies, frustrated. “Hang on, Imma call him again.” 

“Oh jesus,” Sharpy says, levering himself up off the bench, clearly about to come take Patrick’s phone. But Patrick is whiley and quick. Sharpy will never get it. He jumps to another bench, keeping his body between Sharpy and the phone as he dials Jonny again. 

Jonny picks up again. “Jesus christ, Patrick, what?” 

Ooh he sounds mad. Which Patrick does not think is fair, if anybody should be mad it’s him. “You’re such a jackass,” he announces. 

“Yes,” Jonny says with a snort. “You’ve made your thoughts clear.” 

Sharpy makes another grab for the phone, and Patrick leaps to another bench. 10.0. Perfect landing. Patrick could do this shit all day. 

“Go away,” he announces. 

“You called me,” Jonny replies. 

“Not you,” Patrick tells him, “Sharpy is trying to take this phone away. He doesn’t think I have necessary things to say. I have necessary things to say, Jonny.” 

“Is it more yelling about how I’m a jackass?” Jonny asks, and he sounds almost amused now too. That’s not okay. This is very serious. Jonny needs to take this shit seriously. 

“Yes,” Patrick replies. “You are a jackass. And a jerk. And a—a—” he reaches for something else to say and finishes lamely with, “jackass.” 

“Okay, cool,” Jonny replies. “Thanks for the update. I’m going to bed now.” 

“Ugh, no! Wait! Everything is always on your terms.” Sharpy makes another grab for the phone and Patrick holds him off with a hand on his forehead, keeping him at arm’s length. “Even when you were fucking me, and I—” his voice breaks, he’s back in that moment, remembering Jonny’s hands on him, remembering the way he came so hard. “You just left, and I—Jonny why do you make me feel so good and then just leave?” 

“Patrick,” Jonny says at the other end of the line, his voice soft now. 

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Patrick replies, his eyes prickling. “I think about you all the time, you know that? And I hate it.” 

He slumps down on the bench, barely noting that Sharpy isn’t furiously trying to take his phone away anymore. He’s not gonna cry, he’s not gonna cry, not gonna fucking _cry_. He swipes his hand over his eyes just in case, wiping up the barest prickle of tears. 

“I wanna do it again,” he says. “It’s so fucked up.” 

“Patrick, where are you?” Jonny asks gently. 

“Out,” Patrick replies shortly. “On the water. With people.” 

“Sharpy’s there?” 

“Yes,” he replies. “I’m not giving him the phone though.” 

“That’s okay,” Jonny replies. “Are you gonna be able to get home?” 

“You worried about me?” Patrick laughs. “Don’t. I been taking care of myself a long fucking time.” 

“I know, buddy,” Jonny says smoothly. 

Ugh, the way Jonny’s being so fucking nice to him all of a sudden is not helping anything. He can’t take that from Jonny, not now. “I gotta go.” 

“Patrick, are you—” 

“Talk later,” Patrick interrupts and quickly hangs up the phone, jamming it into his pocket. 

He takes a moment just to breathe and to get himself back under control, wiping at his suddenly gritty eyes and straightening his shirt. When he looks over at everyone they’re very studiously not paying attention. Fuck, they must’ve heard everything. Patrick thinks he should be more bothered, but right now he just feels empty. 

Patrick unsteadily pushes himself to his feet and walks back over to them. When he gets close, he holds his hand out for the 40. Sharpy hands it over wordlessly, eyes on him as Patrick takes a long swallow. 

“Ready to head out?” Sharpy asks carefully. 

Patrick wipes off his mouth and then nods, handing the 40 back. “That’d be good.” 

*

He wakes up the next morning feeling thoroughly miserable. It’s easily one of the worst hangovers he’s ever suffered. His stomach churns uneasily, his head throbs, and he feels shaky and miserable. He hates every single thing about his life right now. When he stumbles into the living room just after noon, he nearly walks into the coffee table. Sharpy, who’s already up, playing video games, gives him a too casual onceover that makes Patrick wince. He can’t believe he said those things last night in front of Sharpy and Bur and the girls, and even worse, Jonny himself. 

God, that fucker probably laughed himself sick after Patrick hung up. 

“There’s Pedialyte in the fridge,” Sharpy says as he blows somebody up on screen. 

“Yeah, cool,” Patrick says tonelessly. He wanders to the kitchen and fixes himself a cold glass of water, draining his cup and then pouring himself another one before he even considers the Pedialyte. 

“So, you and Jonny,” Sharpy says from the door. 

Patrick sighs, setting himself heavily down in one of the rickety kitchen chairs. “I mean, not really.” 

Sharpy gives him a quizzical look. “What happened the night you ran out of here, determined to kill him?” 

Patrick shrugs a shoulder. “I’m not gay.” 

Sharpy rolls his eyes and says, “Did I say that?” 

Patrick groans and sinks his aching head in his hands. “I don’t even know anymore, man. I genuinely don’t.” 

Sharpy sighs. “Go back to bed, sleep it off. You don’t have to figure it out right this moment.” 

Patrick clears his throat. Hoping to turn the tables, he ask, “Did you score last night?” Sharpy looks like he’s thinking about how to answer, and Patrick has to laugh. “So that’d be a no then?”

Sharpy makes a mournful expression. “No, she’s—she’s confusing. We’re going to the movies in a few days though.”

“Sounds like you’re in to me,” Patrick replies. 

“Oh god, I hope so,” Sharpy breathes. “I’ve been trying to get her to go out with me for like, two years.” 

“Two years?” Patrick replies. “Man, that’s pathetic. What the hell were you doing wrong?” 

“Okay, so maybe I didn’t, uh, tell her that I had any feelings for the first year or so, but I kept dropping by her shifts at the library. I expected her to figure it out.” 

“Hang on, did you wait two years for her to ask _you_ out?” Patrick laughs and then groans because it makes his head throb worse. He props his chin on his fist and yawns. “Bro, why didn’t you just pull the trigger yourself?” 

“Yeah, no, I don’t think you’re in any place to be lecturing me, man,” Sharpy replies. “When was the last time you went out on a date?” 

“I don’t do dating,” Patrick replies. 

“No, apparently you just get up to weird shit with Jon,” Sharpy replies, looking victorious. 

Patrick face flares up with a blush that’s more damning than anything he could say. “Oh, fuck off.” 

*

Things go kind of south on him again a few days later at a bonfire party on the beach out in Evanston. He doesn’t intend to hook up, he’s just there for the free beer and pizza, and to hang out. But there’s a cute little brunette who ropes him into beach volleyball and then challenges him to a shotgunning competition. 

After a few more beers, sitting a little distance away from the flickering light of the fire, she straddles his lap and says, “So are we gonna do something about this?” 

Patrick’s not sure what this “we” she’s talking about is, and then he’s not sure what the hell is wrong with him, because there is a hot chick literally grinding down on his cock right now, and he desperately wants her off of him. It doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right. 

“Hey, sorry, I wasn’t really looking for anything,” he says, setting her away from him as carefully as he can, trying not to make it look like he’s just trying to dump her off and bail as much as he obviously is. She starts crying before he’s even gotten halfway through his standard ‘it’s not you, it’s me, you’re great, I suck’ speech. 

“Oh hey no, don’t cry,” Patrick says, using the sleeves of his hoodie to try and wipe them up. Christ, he’s really losing his touch here. 

“You don’t want me,” she says, and the way she says it, he can tell there’s a whole host of history there, some recent bad breakup shit or something, and Patrick comes so close to spilling everything he’s got going on that he’s horrified at himself. 

“I gotta go,” he tells her, and she blinks at him, confused. He walks for a long time on the water, steadily heading back towards the lights of the city, his phone burning a hole in his pocket. 

God, he wants to call Jonny again. He doesn’t even know what he’d say. The same thing she did, maybe, ‘You don’t want me,’ and it’s so mortifying Patrick has to stop for a moment, collapsing to the sand to hug his knees. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and the whole time, he knows there’s no way in hell it’s going to be Jonny, but he’s still disappointed to see Andrew’s number flare on the screen. 

“Hey, man, where are you?” Andrew asks. “We’re gonna head out.” 

Patrick sighs. “Went for a walk.” 

“Oh, you with somebody?” 

“No, man,” Patrick says with a snort. “Can you come get me? I need a ride.” 

He texts Shawzy his location and then lies back in the sand, staring at the sky, willing the horrible achingly desperate hole in his chest to go away. It feels so overwhelming right now, and he doesn’t understand why that is. This empty lost ache has accompanied him for most of his life. He thinks of all things he’s done wrong: he’s never been able to be the son his parents wanted him to be, the buddy his friends needed, all he’s ever known how to do is to put up walls and cut shit off at the pass. He’s not well-adjusted or even-keeled, he doesn’t even know how to deal with his fellow students half the time, let alone the guys at the gym. He’s stupidly glad that Sharpy and Bur and Andrew can even stand his ass. He wishes he were a person who didn’t need so much praise and constant validation. Somebody who could just live on what they are and what they have. He’s never ever thought of himself as fragile before, but fuck’s sake, why then does it feel like he’s shattering. 

He just wants somebody to show him what normal is and tell him how to do that, because he’s drowning out here. 

*

“These findings are great,” Professor Savard tells him, paging through the file that Patrick printed out for him because Savard still hasn’t figured out google, or any of the cloud-based systems the university has and wants everything in hard copy. 

“The correlation seems pretty clear in the data,” Patrick says, “so I thought it would help.” 

Savard scans over a few more pages and then looks up. “You know, you’ve really exceeded my expectations, and they were high to begin with.” 

Patrick’s face goes hot. “Thank you.” 

“You are, frankly, alarmingly bright,” Savard says, eyes inscrutable. “I hope you don’t do anything to jeopardize that.” 

Patrick blinks at him. “Professor?” 

“The fighting, Patrick,” Savard replies as he closes the file and sets it on his desk. 

“It’s just a hobby, like rock climbing or cycling,” he says, because it’s not untrue. He needs the money, but it’s also not really about that. Training with Q and the guys has been the only way to get a handle on how out of place he feels here, how much his own skin doesn’t seem like it fits. He doesn’t think he could give it up. It’s been helping him center himself. 

“As long as you’re being careful,” Savard replies, sounding skeptical. 

Patrick smiles. “I do my best. You need me for anything else today, professor?” 

Savard shakes his head. “Go, go, I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Patrick tosses off a salute that makes Savard laugh as he swings his bag up onto his shoulder and heads out. Patrick hopes he’s not grinning like a complete fool as he hits the stairs. Savard’s compliment is the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to him. 

He stops up short when he steps outside and finds Jonny sitting on a bench, reading something on his phone. He looks relaxed, foot propped on his knee, smiling faintly. For a moment Patrick thinks it’s a total coincidence that he’s sitting outside Saieh Hall, until Jonny looks up. 

“Oh hey,” he says, rolling to his feet and tucking his phone away. He reaches his arms above his head to stretch his back out, like he’s been waiting for a while, and it’s the most blatantly sexual thing Patrick has ever seen. Except how it’s not really at all. Only Patrick can’t help it anymore, when he looks at Jonny, the breadth of his shoulders and the sweet curve of his lower lip and the sweep of his eyelashes, all Patrick can think about is that night back in Jonny’s bedroom. 

And Patrick fucking drunk dialed him and told him he wanted to do it again. Let the earth swallow him up already, please god. 

“Um, hi,” he says, and he just knows he’s blushing. 

“How are you doing?” Jonny asks. 

Patrick shrugs. “Decent. You?” 

“I’m good,” Jonny replies. “Can we go somewhere to talk?” 

Patrick nods faintly, wondering what the hell Jonny is doing here. Patrick can never get a good read on him. He takes him to the div school coffee shop, because it may be grungy and dark, but it’s the best place for coffee on campus (“In your opinion” he can just hear Sharpy shouting at him). 

“Grounds of being?” Jonny asks, reading the little chalkboard sign. “Cute.” 

Patrick buys an americano and a green tea for Jonny, waving Jonny off when he tries to pay. 

“So,” Patrick says, sitting down at the long formica table across from Jonny, hoping his nervous energy isn’t showing. That or the way he can’t help cataloguing the way Jonny’s soft sweater hugs his upper body, or how good his hands look wrapped around his paper cup as he takes a careful sip of his tea. 

“I should never have let you make that first bet,” Jonny says, setting his cup down. 

So this is the conversation they’re having. Patrick restrains a groan of embarrassment. It feels like years ago now, even though it was only a matter of months. 

“Why did you?” Patrick asks, dropping his eyes and flicking the lid on his own to-go cup. 

“You’re such a cocky shithead.” Jonny sighs and says, “But you were right, I was attracted to you. I didn’t like it when you threw that in my face.” 

Patrick always knew Jonny was into him physically, but the words out of his mouth are still a surprise. It wasn’t something that people ever admitted about him. He was always the low rent Kane kid. 

“I uh, was attracted to you too,” he says, wincing with how lame it feels. 

Jonny tilts his head and smiles. “I kinda figured, when you kept asking me for a rematch.” 

Patrick flushes. “I _did_ want to get you back!” 

Jonny raises a brow. “Which is why you wanted to come on my face?” 

“It seemed like a good way to embarrass you at the time!” Patrick protests. “I dunno, I was confused.”

“Believe me, I knew that,” Jonny says. “Which is why I shouldn’t have done any of it.” 

Patrick swallows, feeling even more embarrassed. Of course Jonny would come all the way out to campus, even though it must have taken him at least an hour to get here, to let him down. 

Jonny lays a palm down on top of one of Patrick’s. “So can we start again?”

“What?” Patrick asks. This has to be the most painful ‘lets just be friends’ speech he’s ever endured. 

“Would you let me take you out to dinner later this week?” 

Patrick stares at him, shocked. “You want to take me out?” he asks slowly. 

Jonny squeezes his hand. “If the sex had been bad, maybe I wouldn’t. But we both know the sex wasn’t bad.” 

Patrick is on fire. He’s going to die of embarrassment even as he feels a fragile stupid hope blossoming in his chest. He stares down at Jonny’s hand laid over his. 

“Yeah, alright,” he says hoarsely. 

“Alright?” Jonny replies, a tentative smile on his lips. 

Patrick takes a deep breath and then turns his palm up underneath Jonny’s, lacing their fingers together. He’s still blushing and he has absolutely zero chill, but he means it. 

Patrick recovers himself a little to grin and ask, “Does this mean we have to use the three date rule before messing around?” 

Jonny laughs and leans forward, brushing their mouths together. “No.” 

“Okay, sweet,” Patrick replies, back to being bowled over by that simple kiss. 

Jonny looks down at his watch. “Listen, I have to run. But thanks for the tea, and Friday? Sushi okay?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick nods. “I’ve actually never had it.” 

“Cool, you’ll—I actually have no idea if you’ll like it, but trying new things is good right?” Jonny tells him.

Patrick nods. 

“I’ll pick you up at 7,” Jonny says and waves before heading out. 

*

When he gets home that evening the good weather has turned to rain, and he dashes inside, wet, to find Sharpy and Bur chilling over tacos and beer, watching The Walking Dead. 

“So?” Sharpy asks when he spots him. 

Patrick narrows his eyes at him. “Did you have something to do with that?” 

Sharpy shrugs, looking unrepentant. “He wanted to know where he could find you. I told him. Should I not have?” 

Patrick turns away to hide his perpetually red face, but Sharpy doesn’t miss anything. “I knew it! How did it go?” he calls after him. 

“Not telling,” Patrick calls back, pulling a beer from the fridge. He figures he’s earned it after the rollercoaster of the last few days and the impromptu drenching he received.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, while he’s cracking the beer open. He pulls it out and sees it’s a phone call from his dad. 

“Oh jesus, not now,” he says, and lets it go to voicemail. His father calls three times more before he gives up. Patrick wonders only half-interestedly what’s up with him. He sent them money, he doesn’t know what more they could possibly need. Either way, he’s in no mood to get yelled at right now. 

“C’mon now, what happened?” Sharpy says, padding into the kitchen. 

Patrick’s about to open his mouth to answer when his phone starts buzzing again. “Jesus christ, what now?” he pulls it out of his pants pocket to find that it’s Erica who’s calling, not his father. He furrows his brows. They haven’t been speaking much lately, and if she’s calling him, than something really must be going on. 

“Erica, everything alright?” 

When she answers it’s through tears, “Grandpa passed, Patrick.” 

Patrick drops his hand from his ear, phone forgotten. 

“What is it?” Sharpy asks. 

Patrick shakes his head and leaves the kitchen. He should’ve known it was coming. He’d been sick for so long, but Patrick stupidly thought he had more time. He didn’t think he could actually die. Not without Patrick there. And the worst fucking thing is he still doesn’t want to go home. Not now especially, with his dad to yell at him, and his mom to cry all over the place, both of them always demanding so much of him. He can’t do it. He simply cannot. 

“Pat?” Sharpy asks after him as Patrick makes his way to his bedroom. Patrick waves him off. He doesn’t have the words.

He numbly shucks off his jeans and t-shirt for workout clothes and trainers, cursing when the laces don’t quite cooperate, but then he’s got them knotted and he’s running out into the rain. Anything to obscure this horrible feeling of complete, abject failure in his head. 

He’s soaked through in moments, shirt sticking to him, water running into his eyes, shoes squelching with every step. But he keeps going, pounding it out. He’s running alongside the lake, and the churning silvery waves match his mood. He keeps thinking he should turn back, face the music, but even as his chest burns and his legs start to ache, the miles stretch out. He runs for long enough that the sky starts to grow dark. First he passes Shedd, and then he passes Navy Pier. By the time he’s hit the Lincoln Park Zoo, he realizes he’s gone at least ten miles. What’s he going to do, run the entire lake? He turns west without thinking, and it takes him a moment to realize he’s heading towards Jonny’s place. He doesn’t know why. 

Except for how Jonny’s already seen the worst of him, Patrick lying beaten on his floor, almost willing to let Jonny break his arm so that he wouldn’t have to give in. 

Just a few more miles. 

By the time he reaches Jonny’s place, he’s considered and discarded a thousand situations. Jonny might not be home, he might have friends over, he might not want to see him. Patrick should just drag his ass to a bus and head back home, but then he’s in front of Jonny’s buzzer, so tired he doesn’t know how he’s still on his feet. 

He pushes it. 

*


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You wear glasses?” Patrick says. 
> 
> “Obviously,” Jonny replies. 
> 
> “They look good,” Patrick says quickly. They give his usual soberness a scholarly air that Patrick finds attractive. _Hot for teacher,_ he thinks, smothering a smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know that this took a long time to update. Liiiiiiife got in the way, but we're closing in on the end now.

He wakes up with a jolt and doesn’t know where he is for a long moment. The sheets and soft ocean of mattress beneath him are unfamiliar, as well as the quiet whirr of central air. His little room has a shitty window unit that’s on its last gasp, barely spitting out a breath of cold air. 

“Wha—” he says, rolling over and startles again. Jonny lays next to him under the covers, propped up against the headboard with a book in his lap and glasses perched low on his nose. He sees Patrick staring at him in muddled confusion and raises a brow. 

It all comes back to him in a single moment. His grandfather’s death, the 13 mile run to Jonny’s place in the rain, finger hovering over the buzzer. Jonny had buzzed him up without a word, making him step out of his wet clothes. He’d been half dead on his feet, unable to resist when Jonny had shoved him into bed. 

“What time is it?” he mumbles, stretching his arms up above his head to crack his back. 

Jonny picks up his phone and lights up the display so he can see the time. “It’s a little after 11.”

“You wear glasses?” Patrick says. 

“Obviously,” Jonny replies. 

“They look good,” Patrick says quickly. They give his usual soberness a scholarly air that Patrick finds attractive. _Hot for teacher,_ he thinks, smothering a smirk.

Jonny’s mouth quirks up like he knows exactly what’s on Patrick’s brain. He says, “How are you feeling?” 

Patrick sighs. “I don’t even really know, man.” 

“You hungry?” 

At that exact moment the yawning emptiness in his stomach announces itself with a gurgle. Patrick lets out a weak chuckle. “I could eat.” 

Jonny makes him a complicated turkey sandwich on whole wheat that Patrick makes a face at. 

“Oh c’mon, white bread is boring,” Jonny says when he sits down across from him with a cup of echinacea tea. He’d tried to make some for Patrick, but Patrick found the La Croix stashed in his fridge and popped one of those open instead. 

“Is not,” he replies before wolfing down half. He swallows and then gestures with the other half. “Thank you, it’s still good.” 

Jonny nods, blowing on his tea. 

He’d only managed a quick explanation for why he’d felt compelled to go running in the rain before passing out, but Jonny doesn’t seem inclined to push. Nevertheless, Patrick finds himself wanting to explain. He clears his throat and sits back in his chair. 

“My grandfather deserved better than me,” he says slowly, eyes downcast. 

“What makes you say that?” 

He scrubs a hand over his face before answering. “He was my rock when I was growing up. Mom and Dad are fighting? Go over to Grandpa’s and he’ll put on baseball and make you scrambled eggs. Mom forgot to go grocery shopping and there’s no food in the house again? Go over to Grandpa’s and he’ll order cheese pizza and soda from Imperial. Dad’s come home drunk and spitting mad? Go over to Grandpa’s and the next morning he’ll take you to Adventure Landing until he’s sobered up again. I just—” There’s an impending burn in his eyes that promises tears. He didn’t want to lose it like this. Jonny stays quiet, just watching him.

“He’s dead now, and I’ll never get the chance to say goodbye. I really fucked up,” he says, voice cracking on a sob. 

“Why didn’t you go home?” Jonny asks quietly, putting his hand over Patrick’s. 

Patrick shrugs. It seems so stupid now. “Money.” Money comes and it goes, he knows. He could’ve made it up, gotten a credit card, done something. He should’ve spent it on this. It would’ve been worth it. He thought he had more time. “And I—I didn’t want to see my dad.” 

“You couldn’t have known,” Jonny says, squeezing Patrick’s hand. “And look, I don’t know your grandfather at all, but I’m sure he was proud of you. Everybody at the gym always talks about how hard you’re working to take care of your family.” 

Patrick shakes, unable to keep from crying now. “But I didn’t want to see them. I sent the money, and I just wanted them to leave me alone. Who the fuck does that? What the fuck kinda son does that?” 

“You don’t owe them anything, you know that? Not your money, not your time, not your love,” Jonny says firmly. “People have to earn that. Even family.” 

“That’s not how it works,” Patrick protests. Of course he owes them. They’re his family, he loves them. He should be better than this, shouldn’t mind their bullshit so much. 

“It is,” Jonny repeats. He reaches out, gripping Patrick’s shoulder. “If people can’t love you for who and what you are, they have no place in your life. They should be so proud of you. You are so, so, so smart, you’re working hard, and you’re doing it all on your own.” 

“How would you know?” Patrick replies, and it comes out sharper than he intends it to. 

Jonny just smiles, looking almost sheepish. “Like I said, the other guys at the gym, and Sharpy also talks about you all the time. He thinks you’re the greatest, you know that? But he worries about you.” 

Patrick shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know why. I’ve been pretty good at taking care of myself.” Too good maybe, considering he was too selfish to drag his ass home. 

Jonny snorts like he doesn’t even want to deign that with a response. He tilts Patrick’s chin up to meet his eyes. “It’s okay to let somebody else do it sometimes, y’know.” 

Patrick laughs, weak and watery, still a little choked up with tears. “If you say so.” 

Jonny brushes a kiss across his mouth. 

“Hell of a first date,” Patrick says, afterwards, ducking his head again, to conceal how Jonny’s simple kiss has got him blushing fire-engine red. Jonny looks at him like he’s fascinated by him, like he’s worth something. He almost wants to look behind him to see if somebody else is standing there. 

 

*

He goes home early the next morning in Jonny’s clothes. They’re close enough to the same size in shirts, but the shorts are a dead give away. When he gets back to the apartment he’s glad that Sharpy’s still asleep and can’t mock the shit out of him. He’s too tired and too raw to deal with him right now. He knows that Sharpy would lay off if he told him about his grandfather, but he doesn’t want to have that conversation either. He keeps rubbing a hand over his chest like he can make the ache inside it go away. 

When he finally turns his phone back on while he’s brushing his teeth, and has to mute the notifications from his family members as they come in. He’s embarrassed at how pleased he is to see there’s already one from Jonny. Just a simple: ‘call if you need anything.’ He catches himself in the mirror, smiling softly around his toothbrush and groans. 

After spitting and rinsing, he addresses his reflection: “get a fucking grip, Kane.” 

Nevertheless, the day passes in a blur of exhaustion and grief, and when he gets home that evening, he’s happy to do nothing more than sack out on the couch with Sharpy and Bur, watching TV and drinking beer. 

“What is this?” he asks, looking at the screen with furrowed brows. “Women’s softball?” 

“College World Series.” Sharpy says. “It’s a fucking rebroadcast, but Bur has a thing for Keeli Milligan.” 

“Because she’s a dark-haired goddess with a banging body? Yes, I have a thing,” Bur replies. 

Sharpy rolls his eyes. “I’d like to watch the Jays play, but instead, this.” 

“You made me watch Pay It Forward last night, okay, and you didn’t warn me that the cute ‘I See Dead People’ kid got stabbed and died after all that shit, so yes, ‘this.’”

“I didn’t know either, it was just up on Netflix!” Sharpy protests as Patrick gets up from the couch to go investigate what they have in the kitchen for dinner. In all likelihood he’ll wind up making them all dinner, but Bur and Sharpy are good sports and will pitch in for the groceries. 

“It had a 98% match to your profile, so you’re clearly up on adorable kids dying unexpected and gut-wrenching deaths, you monster.” 

Sharpy ignores him. “Hey, Kaner, you good?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You kinda took off yesterday,” Sharpy says. “Everything chill?” 

Patrick holds in a sigh. He’s really still not ready to have this conversation, the inevitable ‘I’m so sorry for your loss’ comments, the touchy feely crap. Yesterday with Jonny still has him raw. 

“Yeah, yeah, just needed a run,” he finally says. 

“Did you hook up with Toews?” Bur asks, eyes on the screen. Patrick freezes. When he doesn’t immediately reply, Bur looks over at him. “Oh, c’mon, you’ll talk to this motherfucker about this stuff, but not me?” He gestures at Sharpy who shrugs. 

“It’s not like we’re having heart to hearts over here,” Patrick replies. “I just—” 

“Wanna smash him?” 

“Jesus, we’re not talking about this,” Patrick replies, turning for the kitchen. He knows Bur probably means well. He hasn’t said one word about the video, and there’s no way Shawzy’s kept that shit to himself, because circumspection and discretion is not in that kid’s vocabulary, but for all of his basically decent qualities, Bur’s still an asshole who can push things just one step too far. Patrick marvels at it. 

“‘Oh Jonny why do you make me feel so good and then just leave?’” Bur’s says after him in a cackling falsetto, followed by a thud and then a grunt. “Ow, Jesus, Sharpy, fuck.” 

*

Patrick wants to curse his fellow RA. She’s supposed to bring him a dataset to run for numbers that Savard had demanded EOB. She’s nowhere in sight despite his repeated texts. If this keeps up he’s going to be late to meet up with Jonny. He taps his pen on his desk, agitated, leg jouncing, watching the minutes tick down. He should call Jonny, tell him he has to cancel, or to push back plans, but his hand hovers over his phone. This new thing they have is so fragile, and he feels pathetic for worrying that Jonny might just say forget it if he called asking for a raincheck, but the anxiety is there anyway. Jonny made dinner reservations, which is such an alien concept to his existence. Fancy back home was the Olive Garden. 

Finally he blows out a breath, sucking it up and dialing his number. 

Jonny picks up on the first ring. “What’s up?” 

“So, I’m trapped here,” Patrick says without preamble. “I’ll probably be done in an hour or so, but no guarantees. Do you, uh—” he clears his throat, “do you want to reschedule?” 

“Hey, it’s no rush on my end,” Jonny says, like he really doesn’t mind. “Text me when you’re done and we’ll get together then.” 

Patrick holds in an embarrassing sigh of relief. “Yeah, okay sweet.” 

They wind up picking up tacos at the Hyde Park Taco Station, which isn’t fancy or expensive, but Jonny insists on paying anyway. 

“It’s a date,” he says, waving Patrick off, smiling at the cashier who looks back and forth between them confused. Something ugly twists in his gut, and Patrick sighs and shoves his wallet back into his pants. Jonny nudges him with a small smile. “Quit it, psycho, whatever is going through your head right now.” 

Patrick’s eyes dart over to him, and when Jonny tilts his head, he remembers that Jonny lost everything too. 

They don’t talk much over their food once it comes, but every time Patrick looks up from devouring his Carnitas taco Jonny looks up too and smiles at him. It feels companionable. He doesn’t have much bandwidth for empty small talk right now. Their knees keep knocking under the table, and Jonny doesn’t move away from the contact. Patrick feels all of 14 again, stuck with a crush. 

Who picks up the tab becomes the reigning theme of the night when they decide to catch a movie and Jonny pays for the tickets, and then again at the concessions, when Patrick is sure he’s got him beat and Jonny strokes a finger over the hand holding his credit card and bends in close to whisper in his ear, “Still a date,” and then slides his own card across the glass countertop. 

Just before the previews, when they’re settled in their seats, Patrick runs to the bathroom. On the way back his eyes snag on the concession stand. There’s no line and he can’t change his nature in a night. 

When he gets back in his seat and deliberately holsters the large Cherry Coke in the arm rest between them with a thunk, Jonny lifts an eyebrow. 

“Independent bitches get up on da dance flo-ah,” Patrick replies, leaning in to put his lips to the straw and taking a deliberate swallow.

Jonny starts laughing and then reaches for some of Patrick’s popcorn, popping the kernels into his mouth. He makes a face as soon as it hits his tongue. “Ugh, so much butter.”

Patrick stares at the slick traces it leaves behind on Jonny’s lips, watching his tongue absently swipe across it, until Jonny intercepts his gaze with a look that turns knowing then heated. Patrick doesn’t know what to do with the dirty quirk of a smile that spreads across his face. Everything between them has always been hard-edged, aimed to humiliate, backed up with a fist, it’s never been easy or comfortable or kind. Patrick wants to lean across the arm rest and his stupid soda to kiss Jonny then, but they’re in a crowded theater, about to watch some nameless blockbuster, and he doesn’t know how he feels about doing gay shit like that. He settles for widening his thighs until their knees touch. 

*

It’s after 11 when they wander out of the air conditioned interior of the theater into the humid night air. It’s a work day tomorrow, for both of them. He lives only a 15 minute walk away, he should probably head home, catch up on the sleep he hasn’t been getting enough of this week. 

“You want to get a drink?” Jonny asks as he twirls his car keys around his fingers.

Patrick bites at his lower lip. He can’t claim to be any kind of responsible on his best day and he doesn’t want this night to be over. There’s also no way he’s bringing Jonny back to his place, past Sharpy and Burr. Fuck, Patrick used to be good at this shit. Getting people into bed. There’s no reason this should be hard just because it’s Jonny. The thing is that Jonny only has to look at him and he stumbles over his own two feet. That ends now. He cocks an eyebrow. “Or we could go back to your place?” 

“We could,” Jonny says, and Patrick doesn’t miss the flirtatious edge of his voice. “That what you want?” 

“Yea—” Patrick doesn’t see the pothole in the middle of sidewalk, stepping right into it with unexpected jolt, forcing Jonny to reach out and steady him. 

“Whoa, all good?” Jonny asks with a quick grin. 

Patrick, caught between a horrible blush for nearly falling on his ass and irritated at himself for still not having his shit together, clears his throat and puts a little distance between them. “Where are you parked?” he asks. 

“Just around the corner,” Jonny says. 

They don’t talk much on the drive along Lake Shore Drive up to Jonny’s place. There was some dumb folk music coming out of the stereo when Jonny turned on the engine that Patrick had made judgmental noises at until Jonny had changed it to some classic rock, but other than that they stayed quiet. Patrick thinks back to the last time he’d been in this car, concussed, Jonny begging Patrick to let him take him to the hospital. He wipes his palms on his thighs and breathes out. It’s not a pleasant memory. 

“Okay there?” 

“Can you stop treating me like I’m going to fly apart?” Patrick snaps, irritated, and then immediately regrets it. Just, maybe this was a bad idea after all. He remembers the last time they fucked. It hadn’t occurred to him until they got into the car that maybe that’s what Jonny would expect again. He couldn’t—Patrick didn’t want—well maybe he did, but he shouldn’t—that wasn’t—

Jonny laughs, interrupting his thought process. “How much of this is you feeling out of your element because you’re on a date with a guy?” 

Patrick lets out an irritated growl and snaps, “Can you let me pay for some things next time? I mean, beyond the soda which you refused to drink anyway on the grounds that it was full of chemicals and refined sugars?” 

“Ask me out,” Jonny says equably, eyes on his rearview mirror, as he changes lanes. 

“What?” 

“When you ask me out, you can pay.” 

“Wanna go bowling next week?” Patrick asks sarcastically. 

“Bowling?” Jonny asks. 

Patrick crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, giving him an assessing look. “Yes, bowling.” 

“Sounds good,” Jonny replies, ignoring his ill-humor, and then he’s pulling into a space in front of his place and turning the engine off. “Still want to come up?” 

Patrick narrows his eyes at him.

*

“It wasn’t a dare,” Jonny says between kisses when Patrick thrusts him back through his door and up against the wall. 

“What?” Patrick asks, breathless. 

“Asking if you wanted to come up,” Jonny replies. “I wasn’t daring you.” 

Jonny’s cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are bright, his collar pulled askew by Patrick’s manhandling. He keeps trailing his hands up and down Patrick’s sides, rocking their hips subtly together like he can’t help himself. If that isn’t a dare Patrick doesn’t know what is. 

He bites at Jonny’s earlobe and then goes for his belt, prying apart the buckle and wrenching down his fly. 

“This is a perfectly good wall,” Jonny whispers, pressing a kiss to the hinge of his jaw. “But you remember where my bedroom is, right?” 

Patrick laughs. This part has always been easy. Way too easy even. And the funny thing was, until the awkwardness of the car, the rest of the date had been easy too. But Patrick realizes distantly he hadn’t been in control. He’s never been in control here. Every girl he’s ever been with he’s had wrapped around his finger. 

“Why do you need it?” Jonny asks softly, guiding him down the hall. 

_Safety_ , he thinks, unbidden. What protection did he ever have growing up besides keeping control of those around him. He pulls away, breaking the kiss, leaning back against the opposite wall, shaking his head. 

Jonny blinks at him and Patrick waits for him to kick him out of his apartment, say that this is over, he can’t handle anymore of Patrick’s mood swings or his bullshit, but Jonny surprises him by rebelting his pants. “I’m gonna get some water, you want any?” 

Patrick swallows and nods. 

When Jonny comes back, Patrick has taken a seat on his bed. “I wouldn’t say I manipulate people,” Patrick says, accepting the glass of water Jonny proffers. Jonny nods and leans back against his dresser, setting his own glass of water down on top of it. He cocks his head, face open and kind, and it hurts to look at him. Patrick drops his face into the palm of his hand. 

“It hurts to be told no,” Patrick says finally, especially when ‘no’ was the basis for his entire life. No _you_ cannot and _you_ never will. “It’s just easier to not ask, make people think it was their idea. And if they never get the idea then,” he makes a gesture with his hand, “oh well.” 

“Sounds exhausting,” Jonny says. 

Patrick scrubs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to turn it off. Couldn’t really do that with you though.” 

Jonny tilts his head. “Try the carrot next time, rather than the stick. I definitely respond better when people aren’t threatening to kick my ass.” 

Patrick very pointedly looks around the bedroom and then raises a brow. “Seems like I did okay in the end.” 

Jonny snorts, making it clear exactly what he thinks of that idea. 

Patrick groans, dropping back onto Jonny’s bed. He’s so tired of himself right now. “I need a good drink and a blowjob.” 

“You can have at least one of those things,” Jonny says, sitting at the side of the bed and reaching out to trace Patrick’s lower lip with the tip of his index finger. 

“Mmm?” Patrick asks. 

“Mhm,” Jonny replies, following the path of his finger with his mouth before leaning back to say, “What’ll you have, beer or wine?” 

Patrick laughs, shoving at his shoulder. “I could blow you too.” 

“That seems like a reasonable trade,” Jonny says. “I have it on pretty good authority you like it.” 

Patrick winces, thinking about the stupid comments on that video, all the people calling him a cockslut for going at it in public. 

Jonny puts a hand between his legs. “That’s not what I meant, baby,” Jonny replies, “you get off on getting people off.” 

Patrick closes his eyes with a shudder, the tone of his voice going straight to his gut. 

“Come up here then,” he says, with his eyes still closed and his heart pounding in his chest, hoping he won’t have to spell out what he means. That hope briefly sputters out when Jonny pauses above him, only to be rekindled when Patrick blinks his eyes open, to find Jonny’s thunderstruck expression. 

“You sure?” he asks. 

Patrick tries not to squirm on the mattress from embarrassment. Patrick’s not a stranger to chicks sitting on his face. He knows telling Jonny to come up and fuck his face is on a different order of magnitude, but the idea is still hot to him. “Come up here,” he invites a second time. 

Jonny traces over his lower lip again with his thumb, staring at him, eyes dark. Patrick doesn’t know what Jonny's thinking until his hand finally drops to his belt, smoothly moving to undo it and his fly. Patrick watches his hand dip into his briefs, pulling his cock a few times to full hardness, before Jonny catches his mouth up in a tongue fuck of a kiss that feels almost like a test of what he can take, hot and slick and deep, Patrick moaning up into it, reaching for Jonny’s shoulders until he pulls away, eyes intent. They’ve barely done anything tonight and Patrick feels wound up, hard enough in his pants he has to reach down to adjust himself. 

“You should lie back against the pillows,” Jonny says, as he shoves off his jeans.

Patrick nods, shimmying up the bed, punching them into shape and settling himself back against them. 

“C’mon, then,” he says rolling his lower lip between his teeth. 

Jonny closes his eyes for a brief moment and then finally, finally moves to straddle his chest. 

“Okay?” he says. 

Patrick rolls his eyes and slides his hands up Jonny’s thickly muscled thighs to grip at his ass, tugging him in closer. “I think we both know I’m capable of doing damage if I need to.” 

Jonny engages those thighs, resisting Patrick’s pull. “I didn’t get to be nice to you before, fucking let me.” 

Patrick cranes his neck up, pressing his mouth to the fabric stretched taut over Jonny’s swollen cockhead, before licking him right through the fabric, until it’s soaked and dark with his spit. 

He pulls off and grins. “I’m trying to be nice to _you_ here, why won’t you let me?”

Jonny stares down at him through hooded eyes, saying nothing, but the way he’s breathing gives him away—sharp inhale and big exhale that Patrick knows well by now—and when Patrick peels his damp boxer briefs down below his balls and then uses them to tug him forward, he lets himself be pulled. Let’s Patrick fit his cock on his tongue, lets him dig his fingers into the meat of Jonny’s thighs, lets him get him wet and messy fast as he bobs his head up and down, because Jonny is 100% not wrong, he does like getting people off. Loves the subtle tremors in Jonny’s thighs that he can feel in his fingertips, the muscle ticking in Jonny’s jaw. 

Patrick tugs him in a little deeper and chokes and Jonny groans. He shuts his eyes and pulls Jonny even deeper. Patrick can’t talk and he keeps waiting for him to get it, to realize that Patrick wants him to fuck his mouth. 

“Fuck you’re pretty, you know that? Some might even call you beautiful.” 

Patrick’s eyes snap open, and he stares up at Jonny, trying to burn holes in him even as he hollows his cheeks around him, sucking hard. He’s not fucking pretty, jesus. Jonny smiles at him, thumbing at Patrick’s mouth where it’s spread wide around his cock. 

“You’re so bad at accepting compliments,” Jonny says. “Gotta wait ‘til you’re well and truly occupied to give you any.”

He cups his palm around the back of Patrick’s head, sinking his fingers into the curls at his nape and then finally, finally flexes his thighs forward in a testing stroke, bumping up against the back of Patrick’s throat before quickly withdrawing.

“So hard on yourself, you can’t see or won’t accept how desirable you are,” Jonny says before thrusting back in, deep enough to make Patrick’s eyes water. 

Patrick drops his hands from Jonny’s thighs and fists them in the sheets, takes a deep breath through his nose. He’s so hard in his jeans it’s bordering on painful, but he can barely think past Jonny above him, the taste and weight of him on his tongue, and the way that Jonny just keeps talking. 

Jonny pushes in in in, his own eyes squeezing shut, color high in his cheeks. “I pretty much wanted you from the moment I saw you, but you knew that.” 

Patrick _didn’t_ know that. He’d known Jonny had been attracted to him later obviously. They’d even talked about it. He shuts his eyes again, focusing on the salt-sweet taste of him and not the way everything Jonny’s saying is rearranging his insides. 

“You fuck me up,” Jonny says on a gasp and then he’s coming down Patrick’s throat, and Patrick himself is moaning, unbidden, fingers tightening even further on the sheets. 

He coughs, dry and hoarse, when Jonny pulls out. Only sheer force of will keeps him from reaching and taking himself in hand. Jonny sits back, looking over Patrick’s face as his breathing returns to normal. Finally he moves down Patrick’s body, the marks from Patrick’s grip still evident on his thighs. When he gets to Patrick’s hips, he gets his pants open and with a filthy smirk, takes Patrick in his hand and then sucks him down to the root. God, if it was possible, he’d forgotten how good Jonny was at this, working him with both his hand and his tongue, and then starting a dirty rub up behind his balls with two fingers that makes Patrick’s entire body buzz. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Patrick whispers, and it sounds hoarse and ragged and exactly like he just got facefucked.

The last time they did this, he’d made himself keep his hands to himself, the last thing he’d wanted Jonny to know was that he’d been enjoying himself anymore than necessary, but this time he can’t help himself, tangling his fingers in Jonny’s hair and tugging. Jonny hums confidently around his cock and that’s as much as he can take, hips bucking up off the bed and shooting what feels like jet after jet into Jonny’s mouth. 

He lies there for what feels like minutes afterwards, but is probably only moments, feeling languorous and high. Jonny moves around the room, changing out his wrecked underwear for a pair of pajama pants and then going to brush his teeth. Patrick still hasn’t moved by the time he comes back. 

“You good?” Jonny asks, settling onto the bed, next to him, expression fond. 

“I’m just gonna—” Patrick mumbles, kicking his jeans off, “pass out.” 

*

Unable to pinpoint what exactly woke him, Patrick opens his eyes to dim light and the alarm clock informing it’s 3:45 AM. He rolls over, and it feels like deja vu, Jonny leaned up against headboard with the glasses again perched on his nose, a book spread out on his lap. 

“Did I wake you?” he asks, looking over at Patrick. “Sorry, had to get some work done.” 

“In the middle of the night?” Patrick asks, blinking sleep out of his eyes. 

Jonny sighs, setting the book down. “Have you heard of Espirense?”

Patrick yawns and shakes his head. 

“My firm is suing Pinckneyville Correctional Center for the wrongful death of one of their inmates.” Jonny pulls off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, expression grim. “But when we were in discovery I came across Espirense. They’re a company that contracts with state prisons to provide their health care. It’s a billion dollar industry.” 

“Right,” Patrick says through another yawn. 

“And I know that they’re employing illegal cost cutting measures that are resulting in deaths, especially with the inmates that are suffering from addiction when they’re incarcerated, but I can’t prove it.” He waves his hand over a pile of documents fanned out over the covers on his side of the bed. “And I can’t make any of the partners listen that it’s bigger than just one poor guy dying because of a neglectful nurse.”

Jonny looks stressed and exhausted, Patrick feels like an asshole for having no idea. He pushes himself up into a sitting position. Reaching for a loose piece of paper covered in tables and figures, he asks, “How many deaths?” 

“At least 20 related to opiate addiction alone,” Jonny replies, “most likely more, hard to really know what form of medical malpractice goes on in a prison.” 

Patrick sighs. “Yeah, I’m not surprised.” Where he grew up too many of the people hooked on oxy eventually turned to heroin which usually meant a stay in Gowanda. None of them came out having kicked the habit, and some of the people he knew who went into prison clean came out addicts on the other side

Sitting by Jonny’s thigh, there’s another group of papers listing all of the prisons Espirense contracts with by State. Just over half the country, he would estimate from a quick glance, including Illinois, which makes sense given Jonny’s firm’s involvement, but also New York. His fingers hovers over the list. It covers nearly every state and federal pen in New York that he knows of and almost every single person he knows back home could name somebody in lock up in at least one of these. 

“What?” Jonny asks.

Patrick shakes his head. “This is just really extensive.”

Jonny nods.

“Can I help?” he asks. 

Jonny stares at him for a long moment. “Are you sure?” he asks, casting his eyes over the assembled piles of paper. “This could be a total fool's errand. My boss already thinks so.” 

“Hand me a highlighter,” Patrick demands, picking up a pile of papers, ready to start going through it. 

They read through sheaves and sheaves of documents that Jonny’s printed out, going over them painstakingly for hours. Even if Jonny’s firm isn’t taking the Espirense conspiracy seriously, their research was thorough. They’re near drowning in data. Just as Patrick’s eyes are going swimmy, he finally sees it. 

Could it be? Could it really be that simple? He checks the last page he looked at and then looks at it again. His eyes aren’t playing tricks on him. This is something. 

“I think I’ve got something,” Patrick says, still staring down at the paper in his hand. 

Jonny freezes next to him. “Actually?” 

Patrick nods slowly. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure. Are you familiar with channel stuffing?”

Jonny shakes his head. 

“It's a way of accelerating revenue,” Patrick explains. “Essentially, you sell a ton of merchandise and report the goods before the buyer can return them, inflating your books and making it look like you're doing better than you are.” 

Jonny nods, following along. 

“This here,” Patrick picks up a government contract, “says that Espirense is legally required to maintain a certain standard of care, and has to spend above a specific threshold per inmate.”

“Right, and they’re meeting those targets,” Jonny replies. “That’s the thing I can’t make heads or tails of.” 

Patrick holds up a finger. “I think it only looks like that.” He hands over the documents he was looking at. “I think they're channel stuffing in reverse, buying medicines and equipment and whatnot to inflate costs, make it look like they're hitting their targets, and then returning it once they've reported the numbers, pocketing the difference.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“I mean, I'm not a forensic accountant, but look at these totals here.” He points at a column of numbers on the page. “This was the number originally reported for January and you can see on the February numbers, where they report the previous month’s totals, the January number here is less. They forgot to scrub it.” Jonny looks over the pages that Patrick hands him, eyes darting rapidly across the numbers. “And you can see it keeps happening, month after month.”

“Fuck, Patrick,” Jonny says, fervently. He sets the papers aside and then drags Patrick in for a deep kiss like he’d start something right here on top of all the prison data with the sky just starting to lighten outside the window. He pulls away again. “You’re amazing.” 

Patrick nods and then wipes tiredly at his eyes. “So they tell me.” Patrick looks at the clock. 5:57 AM. He wants to flop back on the bed, but after all of that hard work, he helps Jonny carefully organize all of the paperwork and lay it out on his desk.

“We can crash for like an hour,” Jonny says with a jaw cracking yawn.

Patrick nods, yawning also. “Fuck, I hope it all makes sense when we wake up.”

“Don’t even joke,” Jonny say as they pad back into bed.

The second time he wakes up, it’s just after 8 am, and he’s alone in bed. He can hear Jonny talking on the phone in the kitchen. For getting only an accumulated four hours of sleep last night Patrick feels surprisingly okay. His growling stomach finally drives him out from under the covers.

“My—uh—a friend took a look at it.” He hears Jonny saying on his cell to somebody he must work with. “He's an Econ student at the University of Chicago and a Research fellow with one of the professors there.” Jonny pauses to listen to whatever is being said on the other side of the line before continuing, “I have full confidence in him. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met.”

Patrick’s face warms, remembering last night, Jonny forcing compliments on him with his cock in Patrick’s mouth. He starts loudly puttering around in the kitchen while he gets himself a glass of water, announcing his presence. Jonny looks up and dashes him a quick smile. 

“I really think we have something here,” Jonny says into the phone, drumming his nails on the counter. “Alright, thanks, I’ll be in to the office in an hour.”

Jonny says his goodbyes and then hangs up, before scrubbing his hand over his face. His hair is sticking up in all directions and there are dark circles under his eyes.

“Did you sleep at all?” Patrick asks, going to the cabinets where he remembers the cereal is from when he cleaned Jonny’s place.

“No, but that’s not unusual for me.”

“Really?” Patrick says with a frown.

Jonny nods. “I’m gonna take a shower, do you need anything?” 

Patrick holds up the box of cereal and shakes it. “I’ll be fine.”

“Ah,” Jonny says, looking sheepish. “I’m lactose intolerant, so there’s no milk in the fridge.”

Patrick blinks at him. “What are my options?”

“Soy or almond?” 

“Annnd I will be eating this cardboard health food product dry,” Patrick says with a shake of his head. 

Jonny laughs and gives him a thumbs up before disappearing into the bathroom. After a moment the shower comes on.

Over his healthy sawdust cereal, Patrick thinks about Jonny’s hesitation on the phone, the stumble over the words as Jonny sought to find one to call him. He doesn't know what they are. This feels real. Patrick doesn’t want to count on too much or read into anything for Jonny, Patrick hasn’t survived life without being exactly sure of his odds, but it feels like more than fucking, more than just attraction. 

Spooning the last unfulfilling bite of cereal into his mouth, he looks at the clock on the microwave. 8:17. He’s gonna be late, and he needs a shower also.

“Yo,” he says, when he parts the shower curtain to find Jonny under the spray, fingers scrubbing through his hair as water runs down over the tan built planes of his back. “Can I join you?”

Jonny looks over his shoulder, wet hair falling rakishly over his forehead, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Espirense plotline is loosely based on what is actually happening in prisons with the company Corizon. It's pretty horrifying.


End file.
